Former Punjab speaker and Dalit leader Charanjit Singh Atwal joins BJP in Delhi

Atwal’s son Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, who had joined the BJP after quitting SAD on April 9, is the party’s nominee for the Jalandhar parliamentary bypoll which was necessitated after Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary succumbed to cardiac arrest during the Punjab leg of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra.

After joining the BJP, Atwal told The Indian Express over the phone that he was feeling “suffocated” after his “suggestions” were ignored by the Akali Dal. “I remained associated with Akali Dal for 65 years. Recently, I had been suggesting reforms in the party, but my suggestions were ignored. Hence, I was feeling suffocated and ultimately decided to resign from Akali Dal,” said Atwal, adding that he joined BJP as he had been “long impressed by [PM] Modiji’s national policies, international policies and the sympathy and sense of service he has for the people of the country.”

Atwal said he always advocated that there should be equal opportunities for quality education, not only for the children of well-off people, but also for underprivileged and marginalised sections of the society – something he said the Akali Dal “did not pay much attention” to, but BJP is “committed” towards.

Charanjit Atwal resigned from the primary membership of Akali Dal on April 19, a day after his son Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal filed his nomination papers as the BJP nominee. While quitting, Atwal had said he considered it his moral obligation to leave the Akali Dal since the BJP had fielded his son for the Jalandhar bypoll.

A two-time MP and three-time MLA, Atwal served as deputy speaker of Lok Sabha between 2004 and 2009 and as speaker of Punjab Vidhan Sabha twice from 1997 to 2002 and from 2012 to 2017. He contested the 2019 parliamentary polls from Jalandhar and lost to Congress candidate Santokh Singh Chaudhary by a margin of 19,491 votes.

Atwal won his first poll in 1977 when he was elected as MLA from Dakha Assembly segment in Punjab. In 1984, he was elected as an MP from Ropar. He won as an MLA on an Akali Dal ticket from Kum Kalan constituency in the 1997 Punjab elections and was elected as Speaker of Punjab Vidhan Sabha. In 2004, he was elected as an MP from Phillaur and went on to become the deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha. Atwal was again elected as MLA from Payal in the 2012 Punjab elections and became Punjab Vidhan Sabha speaker for the second time.

On April 9, his son Inder Iqbal quit the SAD to join the BJP in New Delhi. The saffron party subsequently declared him a candidate for the May 10 bypoll. Atwal had earlier said that his two sons Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal and Jasjeet Singh Atwal and nephew Sukhjinderjit Singh had joined the BJP and hence he felt it was his “moral obligation” to quit the SAD.