Months After Dalit Dy CM Promise, SAD Set to Ink Poll Pact with BSP; May Offer 20+ Seats

Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party may ink poll pact with former BJP ally Shiromani Akali Dal as Satish Chandra Mishra and Sukhbir Singh Badal are set to meet on Saturday. Sources told News18 that BSP could contest on over 20 seats if talks work out between the two.

Before the meeting, SAD will hold a core committee discussion. The potential deal comes two months after Badal promised to pick a person from the Dalit community as deputy chief minister if voted to power in the Assembly polls due next year. Dalits have nearly 32 per cent share in Punjab’s population.

The alliance between the Akali Dal and BSP comes 27 years after the 1996 Lok Sabha elections when the allies had bagged 11 out of 13 seats in Punjab. The Mayawati-led BSP had then won all three seats it had contested while the Akali Dal won eight out of 10 seats.

The Akali Dal also looks forward to fill the gap in several seats after the party split up with the BJP in September last year over its opposition to farm laws, sources told NDTV.

Reports say that BSP has a considerable hold over the 31 percent Dalit votes in Punjab. The concentration of the votes can be significant in the 23 seats of the Doaba region.

The Akali Dal and the BSP, which had fought the last elections in 2017 solo in the state, saw a dip in vote share compared to the 2007 polls. The Akali Dal-BJP alliance had came to power in 2007 before being ousted by the Congress in 2017.

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