NEW DELHI / CHANDIGARH — A significant political tremor rippled through Punjab’s landscape on Friday as Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal arrived unexpectedly at Parliament House in New Delhi to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The high-profile, closed-door interaction has instantly reframed political calculations in the region, triggering intense speculation about a potential rapprochement between the two long-time former allies ahead of the upcoming 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.
A Sudden Meeting and Rewritten Calculations
While neither the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) nor the Shiromani Akali Dal leadership has released an official statement detailing the concrete agenda of the discussions, political analysts view the timing as critical.
For months, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had maintained an aggressive posture of building independent momentum in the state, asserting plans to contest the 2027 polls solo. Similarly, the SAD has been navigating a challenging political recovery following the 2022 assembly and 2024 general election cycles.
The sudden face-to-face meeting at Parliament House has immediately revived questions regarding whether the former partners might reconsider their paths. Historically, an alliance between the SAD and the BJP successfully bridged rural and urban vote banks in Punjab for decades. A renewed alignment could dramatically alter the competitive arithmetic of what is shaping up to be a fierce multi-cornered contest involving the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress, the BJP, and the SAD.
The Bitter Breakup and Historical Context
The decades-long alliance between the regional powerhouse SAD and the national incumbent BJP fractured irrevocably in September 2020, when the Akali Dal walked out of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in protest against the central government’s now-repealed farm laws.
Both parties contested the 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly elections independently, and their paths remained strictly separate during the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Because of this profound historical friction, Friday’s interaction at Parliament House has sent ripples through political circles, raising intense speculation over whether shared political pragmatism could eventually override past grievances.
Kejriwal’s Sharp Retort
The political development quickly drew fierce reactions from rival camps. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convener and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to launch a scathing attack on the development.
Posting a barbed couplet—“Despite resisting, I ended up falling in love with you”—Kejriwal openly questioned the optics of the meeting, taking a sharp dig at both formations.
What Lies Ahead?
As political parties gear up for the 2027 electoral battleground, the growing proximity or backchannel signals between the BJP and the SAD will likely remain the epicentre of Punjab’s political discourse. Whether Friday’s meeting blossoms into a formal electoral pact or remains an isolated political dialogue depends heavily on how both parties manoeuvre their local cadres in the coming months.
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