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Tribune News Service
Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, July 5
Newly-appointed Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar on Wednesday said his aim would be to strengthen the party on all 13 Lok Sabha and 117 assembly seats and present the outfit as the most viable alternative to the existing political parties in the state.
After a thanksgiving meeting with BJP president JP Nadda at the party headquarters in the capital today, Jakhar refrained from making any direct comments on possibilities of a remarriage with the Shiromani Akali Dal, which has quit the NDA in 2021 protesting the three farm laws.
Jakhar sufficed to say that any alliance talks in Punjab were a prerogative of the party’s central leadership but his objective would be to ensure that in any such potentiality in the future the BJP should engage from a position of strength rather than a position of weakness.
Jakhar recalled the decades long BJP-Shiromani Akali Dal alliance in the state to say that the pact had limitations for the saffron dispensation which was restricted to fighting only 23 assembly seats in the state.
“Late Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal had very good relations with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and would often urge the BJP to leave the rural assembly segments for the Akali Dal to contest. The result is there for all of us to see. I will keep my focus fixed on winning and expanding BJP’s base in all 117 assembly segments in the state. I have been tasked with an onerous responsibility. I will do my best to keep the trust of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP president JP Nadda.”
Jakhar also said that Punjab politics had become a one horse race under the ruling Aam Aadmi Party with the entire opposition losing its steam and unable to engage Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on issues riling the state, including mounting financial debt, deteriorating law and order situation and a lingering sense of insecurity among citizens.
“In such a situation the BJP is the only alternative to the existing political parties in the state,” he said.
Commenting on the challenges for 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Jakhar said winning seats was not a challenge for BJP in Punjab. “The real challenges is to win hearts. Seats will follow,” he said.
Jakhar was named the new Punjab BJP chief in party revamp yesterday.
#BJP
#Sunil Jakhar
