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Punjab BJP leader and party hopper makes ‘homecoming’ to SAD: Who is Arvind Khanna

Ex-MLA has business interests in defence, real estate, hospitality and sports; he also heads Umeed Foundation, which works in healthcare and social empowerment

Ex-MLA Arvind Khanna was inducted into the SAD by party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal in Sangrur on Sunday.

4 min readLudhianaFeb 16, 2026 06:35 PM IST First published on: Feb 16, 2026 at 06:35 PM IST

Former Punjab BJP vice-president Arvind Khanna’s “homecoming” to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Sunday has sparked surprise, coming at a time when his former party has consistently outperformed the SAD in Sangrur in recent elections.

The SAD, on the other hand, welcomed 58-year-old Khanna with open arms and almost immediately after his induction, appointed him as the party in-charge of the Sangrur Assembly seat.

“It is kind of a homecoming for me as I began my political career with the SAD in 1997 with its youth wing. Now, I switched to the SAD based on my supporters’ feedback. I have no ill feelings for the BJP, which gave me respect both in Delhi and Punjab. Sometimes, you just need to act in accordance with the pulse of the area as well as the local issues,” Khanna told The Indian Express on Monday.

Khanna seems to have burnt no bridges with the BJP, which wished him the best “for his new innings”. “His joining has ended all speculations about a BJP-SAD alliance. We will contest the 2027 polls alone and based on our strengths,” state BJP spokesperson Pritpal Singh Baliawal said.

Khanna is no stranger to the politics of Sangrur, which was seen as the stronghold of the SAD till the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) burst on to the state’s political scene in 2014 after Bhagwant Mann won the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat by over 2 lakh votes.

Khanna successfully contested the 2002 Assembly elections from the Sangrur seat as a Congress candidate. Two years later, the Congress fielded him from the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat, where he lost to SAD’s Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa.

Seen as a close aide of former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, Khanna returned to the Assembly in 2012 as a Congress MLA from Dhuri only to resign two years later while announcing his decision to step away from active politics citing personal reasons.

Apart from being a full-time politician, Khanna has business interests in defence, real estate, hospitality and sports. He also heads the Umeed Foundation, which works in primary healthcare, rural development and social empowerment.

He rejoined active politics in January 2022, riding on the BJP which fielded him from the Sangrur Assembly seat. He, however, finished third behind the AAP’s Narinder Kaur Bharaj and Congress’s Vijay Inder Singla but ahead of the SAD’s Winnerjit Singh Goldy.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP fielded Khanna again, this time from the Sangrur parliamentary seat. He garnered over 1.28 lakh votes and finished fourth, much ahead of the SAD candidate who returned with just over 60,000 votes and finished fifth.

Khanna maintained that his decision to switch to the SAD was “dictated by electoral waves”. “The wave tells you what people want. I have bowed to the people’s demand. The SAD dominated in Sangrur till the AAP came in,” he added.

Despite his 2022 and 2024 electoral setbacks, Khanna remained active on the ground in Sangrur.

Khanna’s move to the SAD is being seen as a tactical bet by the party to reclaim lost ground in Sangrur, once dominated by Dhindsa and his son Parminder Singh Dhindsa, who is now a part of the SAD (Punarsurjit) – a political outfit floated by the rebel Akali leaders about a year ago.