Chandigarh: The BJP has appointed former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and ex-Congress state president Sunil Jakhar as members of the occasion’s nationwide govt committee, seen as a strategic transfer to increase its presence within the state and reverse its electoral fortunes.
Aside from the 2 former Congress leaders, the BJP has additionally given satisfaction of place to former Congress minister Rana Gurmeet Sodhi and made him a particular invitee to the chief committee. Amanjot Kaur Ramoowalia, daughter of one other Punjab politician Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, has additionally been named as a particular invitee.
The BJP’s transfer to have senior Punjab politicians on board is being seen as a part of its preliminary preparations within the state for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
The appointments have been made forward of a 5 December assembly referred to as by BJP Chief J.P. Nadda to attract up methods for the Lok Sabha elections.
Notably, Jaiveer Shergill, who’s but to formally announce his becoming a member of the BJP, has been appointed because the occasion’s nationwide spokesperson. Shergill, a practising lawyer within the Supreme Court docket, had give up because the Congress nationwide spokesperson in August.
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Exodus after ballot debacle
There was a digital exodus from the Congress following the occasion’s debacle within the meeting elections earlier this 12 months, when the Aam Aadmi Get together received 92 out of 117 seats, registering a thumping victory in Punjab.
In November final 12 months, Capt Singh had resigned from the Congress after the excessive command changed him as chief minister forward of the meeting elections. Jakhar joined the BJP in Might.
Capt Singh resigned saying that he had been harm by the conduct of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her youngsters Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. He went on to kind his personal occasion, the Punjab Lok Congress (PLC).
Though the PLC joined palms with the BJP in the course of the meeting elections, the brand new occasion couldn’t win a single seat and Capt Singh himself misplaced from his residence seat Patiala.
The BJP, which has a restricted political presence within the state, has normally allied with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab. Nevertheless, final 12 months the 2 events had parted methods over the difficulty of the central’s authorities’s controversial new farm legal guidelines, which have since been repealed. Within the final meeting elections, the BJP received solely two of the 117 seats —Pathankot and Mukerian.
Within the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP received two of the three seats it contested in alliance with SAD. It received Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur seats, dropping Amritsar to the Congress.
For the 2024 elections, the BJP is predicted to contest all of the 13 Lok Sabha seats by itself. With the entry of senior Punjab leaders within the nationwide govt of the occasion, the BJP goals to reverse its electoral fortunes.
An uphill activity
The BJP lacks robust Sikh management within the state and expects Capt Singh to guide the occasion in increasing its base among the many Sikh rural peasantry, a vote financial institution that the BJP had left the Akali Dal to deal with.
BJP’s Punjab leaders are confronted with the uphill activity of undoing the electoral harm brought about because of the long-running farmers agitation in opposition to the three farm legal guidelines. The agitation had poised Punjab’s rural inhabitants in direct confrontation with the Narendra Modi authorities, and though the legal guidelines had been scrapped, there may be nonetheless a belief deficit.
Capt Singh, who has been the chief minister of Punjab twice earlier than, is a shrewd politician with substantive mass enchantment. A former military man, he has first hand skilled the darkish years of militancy in Punjab. Throughout his tenure as chief minister, he repeatedly highlighted the elevated makes an attempt of Pakistan’s Inter-Companies Intelligence (ISI) to brew bother in Punjab, which is a border-sensitive state.
Jakhar, who’s a senior Hindu chief from the state, was elected as MLA consecutively thrice from Abohar meeting constituency (2002-2017) and have become an MP when he received the by-election to Gurdaspur seat in 2017. Sodhi was the previous sports activities minister of Punjab.
(Edited by Geethalakshmi Ramanathan)
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