CHANDIGARH: Twenty-five years after Shiromani Akali Dal and Bahujan Samaj Party had contested the 1996 Lok Sabha polls together in Punjab, the two parties announced an alliance for the assembly elections in the state due early next year.
The two parties, represented by SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and BSP national general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, described the alliance as a historic decision.
The seat-sharing formula agreed by the two sides gives SAD 97 seats and BSP the remaining 20 seats in the 117-member assembly.
BSP has got eight seats in the Doaba region, five in Majha, three in Malwa and four in Puadh region.
The two parties will soon form a coordination committee to ensure seamless working in all the constituencies and to jointly chalk out various programmes ahead of the assembly polls.
Announcing the alliance, Mishra said, “Today is a historic day.
The BSP, which is a national party, has chosen to align with the strongest party in Punjab.
This alliance will continue forever now.” The two parties, Mishra added, had come together after 25 years and last time when they had contested 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab together and had won 11 of them.
After the two parties snapped ties, the SAD under the leadership of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had a long-standing alliance with the BJP which was snapped last year over the three contentious farm laws passed by the BJP government at the Centre.
During the period, BJP used to contest 23 seats as junior partner in the state assembly elections.
SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal said: “Today is a new day in Punjab’s politics, a historic day… a day of big turn in Punjab’s politics.” Apart from the entire senior SAD leadership, including MP Naresh Gujral who played a crucial role in stitching this alliance, BSP Punjab affairs in-charge Randhir Singh Beniwal and state president Jasbir Singh Garhi were also present.
Sukhbir Badal said the alliance was not limited to the 2022 assembly elections but would continue after that as both the SAD and the BSP had the same ideology and had always worked for the welfare of farmers, poor and farm labour.
BSP president Mayawati had wanted to come to Punjab and announce the alliance herself but was not able to make it due to the Covid-19 restrictions, said Mishra.
After the alliance was announced, Mishra also called on SAD patriarch Parkash Singh Badal in Chandigarh, who spoke to BSP supremo Mayawati on phone and congratulated her for the alliance.
He even asked her to contest from Punjab.
Ironically, it was Badal Senior’s unilateral decision to support the Vajpayee government in Delhi in1996, which led to the breaking up of the alliance and BSP founder Kanshi Ram, who belonged to Punjab, had at the time accused him of ditching the BSP.
The alliance at that time had won 11 out of 13 seats in Punjab and BSP had won the three seats and Kanshi Ram had himself won from Hoshiarpur.
In a statement issued later by SAD, Badal Senior described the formation of the alliance as the “beginning of a secular, federal democratic revolution in the state and the country for a total socio-economic and political revamp of our polity.
The process of justice and equality for the poor, the down-trodden and the minorities will also get a boost with this development.” He said: “It marks the triumph of the concept of Sarb Saanjhivalta, Sanman te Smajik Insaf (Fraternity, Equality and Dignity) based on the ideal of Sarbat da Bhala (Welfare of All).” As farmers make the majority support base of SAD, Mishra made it a point to state that BSP would struggle handin-hand with the SAD to ensure the three ‘anti-farmer’ agricultural laws were not implemented and praised former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal for resigning as a minister in support of the farmers.
He also criticized the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for praising the hated agricultural laws and only to go back on its stand due to pressure from the farmers.
He also alleged that the Congress government was discriminating against Dalits by not releasing funds reserved for Scheduled Castes to them, deleting lakhs of Aata-Daal and old age pension cards, not filling SC and OBC vacancies, not releasing SC scholarship fee to students and not implementing the Shagun scheme and houses for the houseless scheme.