CHANDIGARH: The BJP is looking for faces of credible Sikh leaders to project, as it eyes the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, which it has to fight in Punjab on its own for the first time in three decades. The party has so far been seen as a Hindu outfit in Punjab with a Hindu at the helm.
A change of the BJP state party president is also not ruled out. A senior party leader said: “There are deliberations that at least 50 per cent of the office bearers in the state unit should be Sikhs. The Sikh vote bank forms 58 per cent of voters as of now. There are hardly any Sikh faces in the organisation.”
Hitherto, the party was a junior partner in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which withered over the contentious farm laws. Now the BJP has given responsibility of nine Lok Sabha seats to three Union ministers for increasing its base.
Sources said Union Jal Shakti Minister and Punjab BJP in-charge, Gajendra Shekhawat, is in charge of Anandpur Sahib, Hoshiarpur and Bathinda. Union Minister of State for External Affairs Arjun Meghwal looks after Amritsar, Jalandhar and Gurdaspur. Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya is in-charge of Patiala, Sangrur and Ludhiana. “The party will soon appoint leaders as in-charge of the other seats,” said a party leader.
Shekhawat has not ruled out the possibility of changes in the state BJP. “There is no reason for a change immediately, but they might be done in the coming days to strengthen the party,” he said. It’s being said that former health minister in the previous Congress government, Balbir Singh Sidhu, who recently joined BJP, could be the candidate from Anandpur Sahib Lok Sabha seat.
In the BJP, three Sikhs Manjit Singh Rai, Rajinder Mohan Singh Chinna and Harjit Singh Grewal have a visible presence. Now, Sikh leaders from Congress who joined BJP might be offered key positions. They include former cabinet ministers, Rana Gurmit Sodhi, Balbir Sidhu and Gurpreet Kangar.