- Wednesday, April 24, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will kick off its campaign for the upcoming assembly election in the northern state of Punjab next month with prime minister Narendra Modi likely to hold a rally in the state on January 5, sources in the party said.
This will be Modi’s first rally in Punjab after his government repealed the farm laws in November. On the occasion of Guru Nanak Jayanti on November 19, Modi announced in a national address that his government decided to repeal the three farm laws against which thousands of farmers had been protesting for several months.
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Modi, who has been making visits to other poll-bound states such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, is scheduled to inaugurate a satellite centre of the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Firozpur in the state. He is likely to address a rally after the event.
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According to BJP sources, former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh and Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa will also take part in Modi’s rally. Singh’s newly floated Punjab Lok Congress and the SAD (Sanyukt) have made an alliance with the BJP for the Punjab elections that will be closely fought between the ruling Indian National Congress, former BJP ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), Aam Aadmi Party and the BJP-led alliance.
Earlier this week, Amarinder Singh and Dhindsa met Indian home minister Amit Shah and BJP president JP Nadda in New Delhi and discussed the seat-sharing arrangement between their parties. Singh became the chief minister of Punjab in 2017 but quit the Congress last month following an internal trouble.
The BJP, which was last in power in Punjab in alliance with the SAD in 2017, will play the role of the senior ally and can contest in more than half of 117 seats.
