Akali Dal aims to make Punjab polls a multi-cornered contest

New Delhi: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) alliance in Punjab is trying hard to bring the Jat-Dalit combination together to emerge successful in the upcoming Punjab Assembly polls. Sources privy to the poll preparations of the alliance have told The Sunday Guardian that the SAD-BSP combination is focusing primarily on roughly 80 Assembly seats where the combined population of the two social groups is more than 50%.
One senior SAD leader said, “Since the last year, we have been taking the services of Mindshare Analytics, a campaign strategy team, to reach our target voters and propagate our agenda. There are 80 seats where we are in a direct multi-cornered contest. We are very much hopeful that the party would at least double the seats in comparison to the last elections. The alliance with the BSP would benefit us in at least 30 Assembly seats. Our core voters are coming back into the party fold. If you have seen our social media outreach, it has increased manifold in the last six months. Experts are calling it a bipolar contest but on the ground it is a multi cornered contest. Our alliance is a major player. Even in the last election, we won only 15 seats but our vote share was 31% on the 94 Assembly seats we contested. It was next to the Indian National Congress (INC), which got 38% vote share. This time we have divided the state into various zones and even within the zones we are focusing on the winnable seats. Congress calls the elevation of Channi as a masterstroke but it may also result in benefitting us.” In the border state of Punjab, the SAD, was in alliance with the BJP since the 1990s with a declared formula of seat sharing in which the saffron outfit contested 23 seats and the SAD contested 94 seats. However, last year amid the chaos of the farm bills, SAD had decided to break the alliance with the BJP and its lone representative, Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the central cabinet. BSP is banking on the senior alliance partner SAD to make an impact in the polls.
Talking to The Sunday Guardian from Chandigarh, Raghvendra Pandey, a senior political analyst who had covered Punjab for more than two decades said, “Since last year, SAD’s politics had taken a turn. It tried to reach out to the Dalits, by forming an alliance with the BSP, as in out of the 117 Assembly seats, the Dalit population is more than 35 % in roughly 50 Assembly seats and if the party gets a sizeable vote share of the community along with its sizeable Jat vote than it might do well and shock the poll pundits. But, the ground reality is not as hunky-dory as the strategists of SAD thinks. The BJP- Amrinder Singh alliance of which a breakaway faction of SAD is a part may damage their prospects in the polls.”
The interesting aspect of the SAD strategy in the assembly poll is the focus on social media and through that they are reaching the target voters. In comparison to other parties in Punjab, SAD was considered a traditional party but they are sensing the need of the time and adjusting themselves accordingly. The Punjab legislative Assembly has a total of 117 constituencies. In the alliance with the BSP, the SAD is fighting on 97 Assembly seats while the BSP is contesting on 20 seats. Former Deputy CM and SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal will contest from the Jalalabad Assembly constituency, while Prakash Singh Badal is fighting from his bastion of Lambi. In the SAD candidate list, there are many former Indian National Congress (INC) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders which includes former Punjab minister Raj Kumar Gupta, from Sujanpura constituency.