Shiromani Akali Dal bucks NDA trend in Punjab

The Modi wave seen in large swathes of the country appeared to have bypassed Punjab, where the BJP won two out of the three seats it contested but its dominant partner in the state, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), won just two seats out of the 10 seats it contested. The Congress bagged the lion’s share of eight seats out of the total 13 seats in the state while the main opposition in the assembly, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was reduced to a single seat from four it had won the last time.

Ahead of the polls, the SAD had sought to exchange seats with the BJP but the national party had said no to the proposal. A split in the SAD further eroded its cadre. With the Congress cashing in on the ongoing inquiry against the then SAD government into incidents of sacrilege and firing on protestors in 2015, the Akalis could not regain their traditional Panthic supporters. While the AAP had made inroads into the SAD’s traditional vote bank in 2014, this time a resurgent Congress beat the SAD.

With party patriarch and former CM Parkash Singh Badal keeping away from poll contests, the SAD was short of a winnable candidate and its challenge was limited to the Badal couple in the Lok Sabha polls.