Chandigarh: Days after quitting the Congress, where he spent over three decades, senior politician from Punjab Sunil Jakhar joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday, May 19, in Delhi.
Throughout his long political career, spanning over three-and-a-half decades, the former Punjab Congress chief often claimed to have stood for communal harmony and righteousness.
In the past, he has taken on the BJP over a number of issues, including the party’s alleged destruction of the federal structure of the country.
Today, he thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah as he took membership of party in the presence of its national president, J.P. Nadda
Speculation is rife that he may be nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan or that he may be appointed as the party’s Punjab chief.
Punjab is a state which remains out of reach for the saffron party.
In this year’s Punjab assembly polls, the BJP managed to win just two seats with a little less than a 7% vote share. This was largely on account of the hostility the party and the Union government faced from the state’s farmers over the three notorious farm laws, which were eventually repealed.
Through Jakhar, the BJP is attempting to shore up its fragile position in Punjab and wants to use him to keep the Aam Aadmi Party in check which, after forming government in the state, has emerged as a new challenger to the saffron party.
Never did politics for personal gain: Jakhar
Jakhar, in his address, claimed that he had never used politics for his own ‘personal gain’ and that he would not do so in the future.
He also said the Congress was like a family to him for 50 years and that breaking ties with party was not a personal problem, but rather, a matter of principle.
“I was not allowed to speak on issues of national interest while in the Congress. When ideologies are relegated to the sidelines, such steps become necessary.” he said after joining the BJP.
He added that Punjab – which he referred to as the land of saints and gurus – is the template for the country because people of all religions live in harmony there. “It even remained unshakeable during the height of terrorism,” he said. But what he said was “unacceptable” to him was the way in which “Congress tried to divide the people of Punjab on caste and religious lines” in the recent elections.
Also read: In Parting Speech, Sunil Jakhar Tears into Gandhis’ Coterie
He said that three generations of his family served Congress, “but I was deeply hurt with the party over the issue of nationalism, unity and brotherhood in Punjab.”
Jakhar said he joined BJP because under Prime Minister Modi, Punjab got the status that it deserved.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent move on the 401st birth anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur ji from the Red Fort in Delhi was a landmark step that moved even his staunch critics and revealed that he regarded the state as special,” Jakhar said.
Nadda, on his part, said “Jakhar had managed to establish an identity away from his party.”
“In Punjab, there are issues related to drugs and terrorism and it is important that people who have national interest in mind join the BJP,” the BJP chief added.
Nadda said Jakhar joining would not only boost the party in Punjab, but would also strengthen the forces which have a firm belief in ‘nation-building’.
Mixed reactions within the Congress
While the Congress is yet to issue an official statement on Jakhar’s charges, many within the party are not happy.
Raj Kumar Veraka, former Punjab Congress MLA from Amritsar West, told The Wire that Jakhar leaving the Congress was a loss. The party should have contacted him after he decided to quit – which he announced through a Facebook live address last week.
On the other hand, former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh welcomed Jakhar’s decision to join the BJP. He said he would be an asset to the party as well as to the Punjab Lok Congress, a political front Singh floated after resigning from the Congress last November and which had entered into a pre-poll alliance with the saffron party.
“When I was the chief minister in the Congress government, Sunil was the Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president. Now both of us are again on same side,” Singh said.
Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring stated in a tweet that he did not expect Jakhar’s move. He added that Jakhar might have formally joined the BJP only now, but he had started working for the party long before, playing blatantly Hindutva politics and damaging the Congress in every way.
Punjab Youth Congress president Brinder Singh Dhillion tweeted: “…Congress is in its toughest time and if leaders who were closest and enjoyed topmost positions leave at this point of time, it shows the true nature of these leaders. When the time to fight and stand for the party came, the weak ran for safer passages.”
Political legacy
Three-time MLA Jakhar comes from the Bagri-speaking Hindu Jat clan that has got considerable influence in and around Punjab’s Fazilka district from where his family hails.
He first became an MLA in 2002 from Abohar, an assembly segment in Fazilka that has a significant population of Jakhar’s caste and linguistic community in a dozen villages. In 2007 and 2012, he was re-elected from Abohar.
Thereafter, he became an MP after winning a by-election in Gurdaspur. He was the Congress’s chief in Punjab during its second stint in the government between 2017 and 2021, but was replaced by Navjot Singh Sidhu six months before 2022 Punjab elections.
Jakhar owes a lot of his influence to his late father, Balram Jakhar, who is the longest serving Lok Sabha speaker till date.
Balram had a successful stint in state politics up to the 1970s. He even became Leader of the Opposition, a post that his son held three decades later.
Balram, considered a loyalist of the Gandhis, had even served in Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao’s cabinet, as agriculture minister.