No conflict Between us: Sukhbir

BJP president Amit Shah held a meeting with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leadership on Thursday as part of his outreach drive. Shah met SAD patron and former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and party president Sukhbir Singh Badal in a closed-door meeting in Chandigarh.

Chandigarh: A day after his meeting with Shiv Sena in Mumbai, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah held another meeting with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leadership on Thursday as part of his outreach drive. Shah met SAD patron and former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and party president Sukhbir Singh Badal in a closed-door meeting in Chandigarh.

After the meeting, Sukhbir Singh Badal rubbished rumours of conflict between the two allies. “Shiromani Akali Dal’s a permanent ally of BJP. There is no conflict between us. I would like to appeal to all our allies that this is time to fight, the battle is in six months. We should get together and cast away all our differences,” Sukhbir Singh Badal told newsmen.

The BJP-SAD alliance, which has been in power in Punjab for over three decades, pushed to the third spot in the 2017 Assembly polls. Of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, the Akali Dal-BJP combine holds six (four Akali Dal; two of BJP), while the Congress has three seats and AAP another four.

The BJP has launched the ‘sampark for samarthan’ (contact for support) exercise to mark the fourth anniversary of the Modi government as it prepares for the 2019 polls. Around 4,000 BJP functionaries, including chief ministers and Union ministers, will contact one lakh people, who are recognised names in their fields, to inform them about the government’s achievements.