Manpreet and more: Seeking to grow in Punjab, BJP looks at unhappy Cong leaders

Coming out of shadow of its former ally the Shiromani Akali Dal, to which it had been playing second fiddle in the state for over a decade, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) continues with its spree to induct disgruntled Punjab Congress leaders into its fold, as it goes all out to increase its footprint in the political landscape of the state. In the process, it is literally getting dyed in Congress wool.

Congratulations to @MSBADAL for joining @BJP4India today.

Many more to come! pic.twitter.com/srQ59nMyuZ

— Capt.Amarinder Singh (@capt_amarinder) January 18, 2023

A former CM, a former state Congress chief, a former finance minister, five other former cabinet ministers and a number of former Congress legislators have already switched their loyalties to the saffron party.

Amarinder Singh joined the BJP in September last year, merging his Punjab Lok Congress with the saffron party, almost a year after the Congress High Command had unceremoniously made him step down as the Punjab CM. Being a staunch nationalist in his ideology, the Captain in a way gels with the BJP, always cautioning about the sinister designs of Pakistan and its agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) to destabilise the border state of Punjab.

The latest entrant into the BJP from the Congress, Manpreet Badal was instrumental in procuring from Pakistan the pre-Partition record of the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 2017, when he was the finance minister in the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government, 70 years after Partition. The 43 volumes of records of historical debates in the Legislative Assembly of Combined Punjab (East and West), from March 23, 1937, to March 3, 1947, contain debates on various bills which contain information about the freedom struggle.

Former Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Sunil Jakhar joined the BJP in May last year, five days after quitting Congress, ending about five decades of his association with the party.

In December last year, BJP appointed Amarinder Singh and Jakhar as members of the party national executive committee. Four days later, in a revamp of the Punjab BJP, the saffron party included the duo in the 17-member reconstituted core committee, along with former minister Rana Gurmit Sodhi and former MLA Fateh Jang Singh Bajwa.

Sodhi joined BJP in December 2021, in the run up to the February 20 Punjab elections last year. Later that month, Fateh Jang Singh Bajwa also joined the BJP.

In June 2022, former ministers Raj Kumar Verka, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Gurpreet Singh Kangar and Sunder Sham Arora quit the Congress to join the BJP.

Arora was arrested by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau (VB) in October last year for allegedly offering a Rs 50-lakh bribe to one of its officers to exonerate him in the ongoing inquiries in cases of disproportionate assets and corruption. He was brought on production warrant from Ropar jail and was arrested by the VB on January 12 in another case of alleged scam in the Punjab Small Industries and Export Corporation (PSIEC), registered on January 5.

On a question about the exodus of several Congress leaders into the BJP, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, at a press conference in Hoshiarpur district during his Bharat Jodo Yatra on Tuesday, said, “My experience is pretty much that anybody who goes to the BJP, goes there because of a particular type of pressure. It is a hidden pressure you can call it… pressure from the CBI, pressure from the ED, pressure from cases… So, we are happy that these types of people are not in the party anymore.” The former AICC chief further said that he has seen tremendous enthusiasm, extremely dynamic workers and a mix of senior and young leaders in the party. “So, what I see in the Congress is extremely capable leadership all the way from the top to the worker level.”

Incidentally, Manpreet Badal’s resignation letter addressed to Gandhi was dated January 17 (Tuesday).

Political circles are abuzz that back to back entries of Congress leaders into the BJP is ‘eclipsing’ the ‘original’ leadership of the party that had been working in the state for years.

The Akali Dal, which walked out of its decades long electoral alliance with the BJP, timed a satire on the saffron party after Manpreet Badal quit the Congress to join the BJP. Akali Dal spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema, in a tweet, appealed to the BJP, “Keeping in view the rapid joining of Congress leaders in the Punjab BJP unit, I humbly appeal to the BJP high command to reserve at least 3 Lok Sabha & 23 Vidhan Sabha seats for original BJP leaders who have been working hard for the party since decades.”

Pertinent to note that before the SAD parted ways with the BJP over the Centre’s ratification of the now repealed three farm laws, the alliance partners used to have a seat sharing arrangement where, out of 13 Lok Sabha seats, the Akali Dal used to contest on 10 and BJP on three. In the Vidhan Sabha elections, Akali Dal used to contest on 94 seats and BJP on 23. In the process, BJP always had to play second fiddle to the Akali Dal.