Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP tiffs in Haryana unlikely to effect alliance elsewhere

CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal’s run-in with BJP in Haryana, where SAD has an alliance with Om Prakash Chautala’s INLD, is unlikely to effect the NDA in Punjab.

After severing ties with Sena and HJC, some BJP leaders have been engaged in skirmishes with SAD in Haryana, leading to speculation that another NDA constituent may be on its way out. SAD in alliance with INLD has fielded two candidates, one in Ambala City and the other in Kalianwala (Sirsa). A senior BJP functionary said that this was not a new development. INLD and SAD had contested the 2009 Haryana polls also in alliance. However, BJP and Akali campaigners have attacked each other this time.

Navjot Singh Sidhu, ex-MP from Amritsar and a star campaigner for BJP in Haryana, took pot-shots at SAD and its top leadership. Attacking Punjab Deputy CM Sukhbir Singh Badal, he told BJP election rallies that SAD has behaved like a backstabber. Badal retorted Sidhu was a non-entity.

At a press conference in Chandigarh on Sunday, Sidhu said the party would take a call on the fate of its alliance with SAD after the assembly elections. However, central BJP functionaries dismissed the possibility of an imminent break-up of alliance. BJP is a junior partner in the SAD government in Punjab and Badal’s wife Harsimrat Kaur is the Food Processing Minister in the Narendra Modi government at the Centre.