In a major development, the Bhartiya Janta Party is set to contest the Lok Sabha Elections alone in Punjab. State BJP President Sunil Jakhar in a video posted on X made the announcement. Punjab's Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which had been part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) since 1996, had walked out of the alliance in 2020, in the wake of the farm agitation against the Centre’s three contentious agri laws.
The two parties have been holding behind-the-scenes parleys for an alliance for the past few months. At one stage SAD was keen and two days ago BJP’s top leader and home minister Amit Shah had given positive indications. BJP’s state president Sunil Jakhar has been publicly advocating for an alliance. It needs to be mentioned that in the first week of February two parties were all set to announce the alliance, however, with the start of the farmer’s protest starting February 13, the SAD went into wait-and-watch mode.