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Jakhar’s BJP gambit an attempt to resurrect his political career
Former Gurdaspur MP Sunil Jakhar’s stint with the Congress had reached a dead end after the party leadership took disciplinary action against him
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Former Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar’s move to join the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — a party he has been fighting all along — has not come as a surprise.
The former Gurdaspur MP’s stint with the Congress had reached a dead end after the party leadership took disciplinary action against him. The disgruntled leader’s gambit of joining the BJP is being seen as an attempt to resurrect his political career. The BJP, on the other hand, stands to gain from the induction of a prominent Hindu face who was the Punjab Congress chief till a few months back and then headed its campaign committee for the assembly polls.
The saffron party, whose presence is limited to mostly urban pockets of Punjab, has been looking to strike out on its own ever since its alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) fell apart in September 2020 over the controversial farm laws. The articulate, three-time former MLA, who has been a sharp critic of the BJP and was pitted in a direct fight with it in all his electoral battles in Abohar and Gurdaspur, is surely a big catch for it.
Jakhar, in the run-up to the assembly polls, had announced that he is quitting “active politics”. While he has been quiet on returning to active politics, people close to him say that his joining the BJP is a clear sign.
Jakhar, whom Navjot Singh Sidhu replaced as the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee chief in July 2021, was upset with the Congress ever since the party leadership ignored him for the chief minister’s post in September last year after then CM Capt Amarinder Singh was made to resign. Jakhar later claimed that 42 of the 80 Congress MLAs wanted him to be the CM, but he was denied the post for being a Hindu.
The Congress last month issued him a show-cause notice for his remarks, but he took affront and did not send a reply. The party then decided to remove him from all posts for two years.
There were whispers that senior BJP leaders were in touch with Jakhar from the time the Congress took disciplinary action against him last month. He resigned from the Congress on social media on Saturday, tearing apart the central leadership for its “gross mishandling” of the party affairs in Punjab.
The BJP’s national footprint appears to have drawn Jakhar towards it, which may accommodate him in the Rajya Sabha and give a role in national politics. According to Ashutosh Kumar, professor of political science at Panjab University, Chandigarh, Jakhar’s career was not going anywhere in the Congress, but he could be an asset for the BJP. “He has a clean image and lineage. His compatibility with the BJP in its present form will be a thing to watch out for. The BJP culture is totally different from that of the Congress,” he said.
A senior Congress leader, however, said Jakhar’s entry into the BJP will not make any difference. “Their political clout and electoral record speak for themselves. Let us see what advantage they bring to each other,” said the leader who did not want to be named.
The Jakhar family has been associated with the Congress for close to five decades. His father Balram Jakhar, who passed away in 2016, was a senior party leader and served as the Lok Sabha speaker and Union minister. His nephew Sandeep Jakhar is presently the Congress MLA from Abohar in Fazilka district — a seat that Sunil Jakhar represented thrice in the past.
