Punjab ‘grand alliance’: BJP takes 65 seats, Punjab Lok Congress 37 & SAD (Sanyukt) 15
Ahead of the crucial Punjab polls next month, the BJP on Monday announced the seat-sharing formula with its two allies – the Punjab Lok Congress led by former CM Amarinder Singh and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa’s Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt).
The saffron party will contest the majority 65 seats in the 117-member Assembly, the Punjab Lok Congress will contest 37 and Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) will fight on the remaining 15 seats.
Their campaign, the BJP said, will focus on “stability, security and change to secure the future of Punjab and its people”.
Calling it a “Grand Alliance”, BJP president JP Nadda said in New Delhi that they would fight not just for “a change of regime but to keep the future generation safe, and for the stability of Punjab”. Accompanied by Amarinder and Dhindsa at the press meet, Nadda said Punjab is in “a deep economic crisis” and needs a “double engine government to push it on the path to development”.
Leaders of BJP-Led alliance in Punjab jointly address a press conference at party headquarters in New Delhi. https://t.co/uXc6yapnyh
— BJP (@BJP4India) January 24, 2022
“Punjab is a border state, for the security of the country, it is necessary to have a stable and strong government in Punjab. We know how Pakistan’s actions have been for our country. We have seen there that there are attempts to smuggle drugs and weapons,” Nadda said. “It is always the intention of the anti-national forces that there should be activity through Punjab in this derailing.”
Nadda added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had constituted an SIT to probe the 1984 Riots and the accused are in jail today. “We will abolish ‘Mafia Raj’ in Punjab,” he said.
According to Dhindsa, his party had decided to join the BJP to “stop the mafia” in Punjab, while Amarinder said he had come together with the saffron party for the “sake of stability of the country and also the security of the nation and the state”.
On Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, the Captain said: “He was inefficient, incompetent and useless.”
In the 2017 Punjab elections, the Congress under Amarinder had won 77 of the 117 Assembly seats.
