Wooing rural Sikhs still a work in progress for BJP
Drubbing in the recently concluded four bypolls and Lok Sabha elections clearly depict that the party is still struggling to bridge the gap with rural Sikhs in Punjab
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ambitious strategy to expand its wings in rural Punjab by inducting prominent Sikh leaders, particularly from the Jat Sikh community, hasn’t yielded the desired results.
The recently concluded four bypolls and the Lok Sabha elections clearly depict that the party is still struggling to bridge the gap with rural Sikhs. In three of the four bypoll assembly segments, BJP candidates lost their security deposits. In Gidderbaha, a prominent Jat Sikh face and former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, could only manage to secure 11,977 votes. The winner polled 71, 644 votes. Similarly, former Akali Dal MLA Sohan Singh Thandal, a Dalit Sikh face from Doaba, who contested from the Chabbewal reserved segment, could only muster 8,692 votes. The victorious candidate got 51,904 votes. Thandal had joined BJP just two days before the last date for filing the nominations.
In Dera Baba Nanak seat, BJP’s Ravi Karan Singh Kahlon, son of former speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon, a Jat Sikh face, could get just 6,505 votes, nearly 53,000 less than the winner. The sole consolation for the BJP was the Barnala constituency where party candidate Kewal Singh Dhillon managed to save his deposit. Dhillon finished third by getting 17,937 votes, almost 10,000 votes less than the winner.
A similar story was witnessed in the Lok Sabha polls where the BJP’s drubbing in rural areas saw it lose at least three key parliamentary seats, Patiala, Ludhiana and Ferozepur, by a narrow margin.
In Patiala, Preneet Kaur won Dera Bassi, Rajpura and Patiala Urban assembly segments and stood second in Patiala Rural. She got the lead of around 60,000 votes from these constituencies. However, she finished third after polling fewer votes in Samana, Shutrana, Nabha and Ghannaur. In Ghannaur, she could get only 14,764 votes. Congress’ Dr Dhramvira Gandhi eventually won the seat by a margin of 16,618 votes.
Similarly, in Ludhiana, Ravneet Bittu won five of the six assembly segments in the urban areas. Even after getting a lead of 68,073 votes, Bittu couldn’t win because the party was routed in the rural segments of Dakha, Gill and Jagraon.
In Ferozepur, BJP’s Rana Gurmeet Singh Sodhi finished third but led in the Abohar assembly constituency by a margin of 32,526 votes. He also led the Balluana assembly constituency by a margin of 16,082 votes and won from Ferozepur City by around 1,200 votes. However, Rana, who represented the Guru Har Sahai segment four times as a Congress nominee before joining the BJP, could only manage 12,622 votes here. Rana ultimately stood third and lost by a margin of 11,529 votes.
Sikhs have been at the centre stage of the political discourse of the BJP in Punjab ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to withdraw the three controversial farm laws in 2021.
In the run-up to the 2022 Punjab assembly elections, the BJP roped in several influential Sikh leaders, including former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Fateh Singh Bajwa, Manpreet, Balbir Singh Sidhu, and Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi.
The BJP also elevated key Sikh leaders within its national framework.
Iqbal Singh Lalpura, a prominent Sikh face, was appointed the chairman of the minorities panel and a member of the BJP’s Parliamentary Board, the party’s highest decision-making body. Satnam Singh Sandhu, Chancellor of Chandigarh University and a noted Jat Sikh businessman, was nominated to the Rajya Sabha just ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.
On the organisational front, the party made efforts to integrate Sikh leaders, with Amarinder and Rana Sodhi being included as special invitees in the BJP’s national executive. Other leaders such as Amarjot Kaur Ramoowalia were also given key positions.
In state organisations as well, party has given prominence to many Sikh faces with former MLA Fateh Jung Bajwa and former MLA Jagdeep Nakai as vice-presidents and Parminder Brar and Dr Jagmohan Raju as general secretaries.
However, the BJP faced setbacks when prominent leaders who had joined from the Congress, such as Balbir Sidhu, Gurpreet Singh Kangar, and Raj Kumar Verka, returned to their original party in 2023.
The moves were seen as a calculated attempt to appeal to Punjab’s rural voters, where the Jat Sikh community plays a dominant role.
However, the strategy has not gained traction, with rural voters continuing to favor regional parties like the AAP and the Congress. “We seriously need to ponder over as why we have not been able to win over the Sikhs despite ruling in the Centre from past over 10 years and making key religious decisions of opening up Kartarpur corridor and inducting number of Sikh leaders from other parties. We need to serious change our strategy as there is feeling in the party that prominence to much importance to Sikh faces have upset the traditional Hindu base as well,” said a senior BJP leader who did not wish to be named.