Over three years after parting ways, the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) are likely to join hands again, ahead of the 2024 general election.
The SAD and BJP became alliance partners way back in 1996, but the controversy over the Centre’s now-repealed agriculture laws led to the SAD - one of the BJP’s oldest allies - breaking away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in 2020. The SAD then joined hands with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the parties faced the 2022 Punjab Assembly election together.
While leaders from both parties are tight-lipped on a possible alliance, sources familiar with the development asserted that talks have been under way between the top leadership of BJP and SAD for some time. The “reluctance” of the top brass of both parties to enter into an alliance seems to have come to an end.
