SAD, BSP stitch alliance for Punjab Assembly polls
Chandigarh, June 12: The Shiromani Akali Dal and the Bahujan Samaj Party formed an alliance on Saturday for the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections, coming together after a gap of 25 years.
Under the tie-up, the BSP will fight 20 of the 117 Assembly seats while the rest will be contested by the SAD, said Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal while announcing the alliance here.
The SAD-BSP alliance had contested the 1996 Lok Sabha polls together and won 11 out of 13 seats in Punjab. While three seats were won by the BSP and the rest were won by the SAD.
BSP chief Mayawati dubbed the alliance between the SAD and her party as a “new political and social initiative” which will usher in progress and prosperity in Punjab.
SAD stalwart and former CM Parkash Singh Badal described the formation of the SAD-BSP alliance as “the beginning of a secular, federal democratic revolution in the state and the country for a total socio-economic and political revamp of polity”.
Punjab has 31.94 per cent Dalit population, mainly concentration in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Kapurthala districts.
The border state has the highest percentage of Scheduled Castes population in the country.
At a joint press conference with BSP’s general secretary Satish Chandra Mishra, Sukhbir Badal said, Today is a new day in Punjab’s politics, a historic day...a day of big turn in Punjab’s politics.”
The BSP will contest seven seats in Malwa, five in Majha and eight in Doaba regions of Punjab, said Badal, adding that the two parties will soon form a coordination committee to jointly chalk out various programmes ahead of the polls.
The leaders of the two outfits claimed that the alliance will “sweep” the 2022 polls and oust the “non-performing” Congress from power.
The SAD earlier had a tie-up with the BJP and the Badal-led party walked out of the NDA over the farm laws issue last year.
About the new alliance, Mr Mishra said, “Today is a historic day. The BSP, which is a national party, has entered into an alliance with Punjab’s strongest party SAD.”