- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
FORMER chief minister of Punjab Captain Amarinder Singh, who quit last month claiming he was being made to face humiliation, is reportedly set to float his own political party and might even consider allying or adjusting seats with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in his poll-bound state. One news source predicted that Singh’s new party could be called the ‘Punjab Vikas Party’.
Informed sources told this to Indian daily Hindustan Times while revealing a development that could radically affect the electoral landscape in the state which has been witnessing political twists and turns over the past many months.
Very unlikely Captain Amarinder Singh will join BJP: Opponent, expert
A week after Singh, Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, who shares a rocky relationship with the former, also resigned, saying he was not okay with compromise. The state’s ruling Congress has found itself in a disarray over the resignations of the two leaders in the state.
Singh later met Indian home minister and BJP’s second most-powerful leader Amit Shah in New Delhi, sparking speculation over his political plan. The 79-year-old leader though said that he was not joining the saffron party, he also said that he would not remain with the Congress either. He also met national security advisor Ajit Doval.
Although Singh neither confirmed nor denied the speculation that he could form a new party and form alliance with the BJP, his meetings with Shah and Doval continued to keep the observers guessing. One section of experts believes that the matter would depend on the Narendra Modi government’s stance on the three controversial agricultural laws that has turned the farmers against it and it could have an impact in the upcoming Punjab elections next year. The BJP’s popular base has been hit by the emotive issue and that might stop Singh to make a straight alliance with it.
Singh, who is not new to forming new parties, said he doesn’t do politics through media statements.
“I’d fight my battle in the field, in the court of the people,” he said, adding that he has plans to travel to Delhi again and sit down with senior Congress leaders (known as G-23) who are upset over the party’s current state of affairs.
“I’m going to tell the G-23 to hit the field, to reach out to people rather than expressing concerns in social media,” he said.
In 1980, he won the Lok Sabha elections on the Congress’s ticket but after Operation Blue Star that had rocked Punjab’s socio-politics in the early 1980s, he left the Congress to join the Akali Dal. He later formed a splinter group called Shiromani Akali Dal (Panthic) but that virtually merged with the Congress in 1998.
