Chandigarh: Even as the Punjab BJP went into damage control mode Friday and denied
reports of its chief Sunil Jakhar’s resignation, all is not well with the party unit, ThePrint has learnt.
Punjab BJP general secretary Anil Sarin spent his Friday vociferously denying reports of Jakhar’s resignation.
Though state BJP leaders denied having any information on the matter, ThePrint has learnt that Jakhar has, in fact, offered to resign and has been upset with the party’s top leadership.
Speaking to news agency ANI, Sarin said the reports were false and were being spread by the opposition parties. He said that the Opposition was unhappy over the growing reach of the BJP in Punjab and was trying to create confusion among the public.
“In Punjab, the BJP is together and working like a team and Sunil Jakhar ji continues to be our chief,” said Sarin.
However, Jakhar has been incommunicado so far and has not issued any denial of media reports claiming that he resigned from his position amid growing discontentment with the party high command over its decisions regarding Punjab.
Jakhar’s personal assistant Sanjeev Trikha told ThePrint he did not know about the resignation. He, however, said that Jakhar was in New Delhi.
BJP leader Subhash Sharma told ThePrint that he did not have any information regarding the matter. “My team and I are in Haryana preparing for the assembly elections. I have no clue,” he said.
Jakhar’s nephew, Sandeep Jakhar, who is the MLA from Abohar constituency, said he had spoken to his uncle Friday morning. “All he told me was to continue doing work in my constituency and not bother myself with high-level politics. For me, his statement is like a command and I did not ask him any more questions,” Sandeep told ThePrint.
Reacting to the development, Congress state president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring posted on X: “Mr @sunilkjakhar, All the best, where next ?”
Mr @sunilkjakhar,
All the best,
where next ? pic.twitter.com/309ZY2hGwt— Amarinder Singh Raja Warring (@RajaBrar_INC) September 27, 2024
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Jakhar upset with top leadership?
Highly placed sources in the BJP in Delhi have admitted that Jakhar has offered to resign and the matter has been in discussion in the top circles for the past few days. His absence from a crucial meeting Wednesday in Chandigarh regarding a party membership drive lent credence to the notion that Jakhar has not been happy with the party high command.
Jakhar has also not reacted in any manner to the various political developments in Punjab for the past few weeks, including the party’s plan of action for the forthcoming panchayat elections in the state.
Sources added that Jakhar has been largely upset over the party’s choice of Ravneet Singh Bittu as minister, despite Bittu having lost the Lok Sabha elections from Ludhiana. Bittu, once a colleague of Jakhar in the Congress, is the minister of state for railways and food processing. He was elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha from Rajasthan.
Bittu, who has been a two-time MP with the Congress, shifted to the BJP ahead of the general elections.
Jakhar, according to the sources, is also upset with the party’s top leadership for not allying with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for the parliamentary elections. Apart from the possibility that the alliance would have improved the prospects of the two parties in the elections, Jakhar has publicly said multiple times that an alliance between the BJP and SAD is vital for the maintenance of communal harmony in the state.
ThePrint has learnt that while Jakhar was ready to join hands using the seat-sharing formula of 10 seats for SAD and three for BJP, the top leadership wanted a larger chunk of seats, over which the talks between the two parties failed.
After the election verdict, political experts said had the two parties contested as allies, they would have won at least six of the 13 seats in the state.
“If we total the number of votes procured by the two parties individually on six seats, they are more than those procured by the winning candidate,” said Dr Pramod Kumar, head of the Institute of Development and Communication, Chandigarh.
Following the Lok Sabha elections, in which the BJP contested all 13 seats in the state solo but won none, Jakhar had offered to resign taking responsibility for the party’s performance. However, the high command had not accepted the offer, citing an increase in overall vote share of the party from 9.63 percent in 2019 to 18.56 percent.
Jakhar was given the responsibility of helming the party’s affairs in Punjab in July last year, despite having come from Congress. Sources told ThePrint that his promotion to the position of Punjab unit chief did not go down too well with the senior party leaders in the state.
The crisis in the party also comes ahead of the panchayat elections in the state. More than 13,000 villages of Punjab will be electing panchs and sarpanches, and although the polling is not subject to party symbols, every political party is backing various candidates. Elections are scheduled to be held on 15 October. The process of nominations began Friday.
Meanwhile, a spat broke out between the Congress and the BJP over the matter later in the day. Reacting to Warring’s post on X, a post from Punjab BJP’s official account said that Warring should “not worry about” Jakhar’s presidency and must instead worry about losing the chair of Punjab Congress president.
ਸੱਦੀ ਨਾ ਬੁਲਾਈ ਮੈਂ ਲਾੜੇ ਦੀ …………. !!
ਤੁਸੀਂ ਸਾਡੇ ਪ੍ਰਧਾਨ ਦੀ ਚਿੰਤਾ ਛੱਡੋ…ਤੇ ਆਪਣੀ ਕੁਰਸੀ ਬਚਾਓ,
ਖਬਰਾਂ ਤਾਂ ਤੁਹਾਡੀ ਪ੍ਰਧਾਨਗੀ ਜਾਣ ਦੀਆਂ ਵੀ ਜ਼ੋਰਾਂ ਤੇ ਹਨ….. ਹੋਰ ਪਤਾ ਲੱਗੇ ਸਾਡੇ ਚੱਕਰ ਚ’ ਦਿੱਲੀ ਤੋਂ ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਜਾਣ ਦੀ ਚਿੱਠੀ ਆ ਜਾਵੇ 😬 https://t.co/8NrUERML1O
— BJP PUNJAB (@BJP4Punjab) September 27, 2024
In response to this, a post by Punjab Congress questioned why Jakhar himself had not offered any clarification. “Your president has switched off the phone and disappeared,” it read.
ਬੋਲੇ ਤਾਂ ਬੋਲੇ….
ਉਹ ਬੋਲੇ ਜਿਹਦੇ ਅਸੀਂ ਭੇਤ ਖੋਲੇ,ਤੁਹਾਡੇ ਪ੍ਰਧਾਨ ਜੀ ਇਹ ਗੱਲ ਆਪ ਵੀ ਦੱਸ ਸਕਦੇ ਸਨ ਕਿ ਉਹਨਾਂ ਨੇ ਅਸਤੀਫ਼ਾ ਨਹੀਂ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਜਾਂ ਸਭ ਕੁੱਝ ਠੀਕ ਹੈ ਪਰ ਨਹੀਂ,
ਉਹ ਤਾਂ ਫ਼ੋਨ ਬੰਦ ਕਰਕੇ ਅਲੋਪ ਹੋ ਗਏ ਹਨ। https://t.co/MeoX9LWSzd— Punjab Congress (@INCPunjab) September 27, 2024
The BJP then posted: “The phone number that you have is from Congress days and has been switched off for a very long time… If your president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring also wants to join BJP, he can.”
To this, the Congress said that BJP should go look for their “sailor” because their “ship seems to be sinking”.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
