BJP’s Manjinder Singh Sirsa rules out any future alliance with Akali Dal

BJP national secretary and Delhi minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa, on Thursday, ruled out any future alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab.

Speaking at a press conference here, Sirsa stated that the BJP contested the 2022 state elections and last year’s parliamentary polls independently.

“The party would continue to fight future elections on its own,” Sirsa said, adding, “We want to win the hearts of the people of Punjab and contest the elections independently.”

SAD and BJP, the two long-time partners, parted ways in 2020 over the now-repealed three farm laws.

On the issue of the 1984 riots cases, Sirsa, who was on his maiden visit here after becoming a minister in the Delhi government, said the accused were being brought to the book and punished after four long painful decades as it was after Prime Minister Narendra Modi constituted an SIT in 2014 that the skeletons of massacre started tumbling out of the closet and people were now getting justice.

He said that prime accused Sajjan Kumar was recently convicted in a second case and awarded a life term after four decades. “Had PM Modi not constituted the SIT, the offenders would have continued to hoodwink law and people would still have been bereft of justice,” he added.

Targeting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Sirsa claimed that after losing in Delhi, the party leaders had now moved to Punjab. He said that while the AAP had slept over the issue of drugs, corruption and law and order in Punjab for the past three years, it was now trying to prove that it had risen from a slumber. “To cover up their government’s failure, (AAP supremo) Arvind Kejriwal is now being promoted as Punjab’s messiah. He and his coterie are making a dent in the state’s debt-ridden economy,” he alleged.