SIR Concerns Emerge as BJP Shifts Focus to Panjab After Bengal Win

May

2026

After Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won in West Bengal, considered an All India Trinamool Congress bastion, all eyes are on Panjab elections in early 2027. Panjab’s traditional parties Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Indian Nation Congress (INC) remain in disarray. SAD has not been able to recover after 2015 when incidents of sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh scripture and charter) and other religions eroded people’s trust. INC has several tall leaders but remains a divided house. The incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) got a massive mandate in 2022 winning 92/117 seats but has massively underperformed, indulged in corruption amongst allegations of it being run from Delhi. The BJP was in alliance with SAD and in power in the state in 1997–2002 and 2007–17, but as a junior partner. After SAD pulled out from its alliance with BJP in 2020 over the draconian farm laws which were later repealed, BJP has decided to fight all seats on its own in 2027. However, BJP’s issues are: one, it has no rural base in Panjab. Two, most ordinary Sikhs—who constitute 56% of the population—consider the party anti-Sikh. Three, farmers and laborers harbor animosity towards the party for their over-year-long protest against farm laws in 2020–21 in which 735 people died. Four, people in the critical border state also remember how the BJP curbed the Farmers Protest 2.0 (2024–25) violently at the Panjab and Haryana inter-state borders at Shambhu and Khanauri. Five, Panjab has never been communal so BJP’s ploy of othering the Muslims in rest of India does not work in the state. BJP has got some prominent Sikh faces into the party but it is yet to be seen if the ploy works. However, BJP has been using state machinery to its advantage. For example, in its West Bengal win, the Election Commission of India implemented a Special Intensive Revision of the voter list which disenfranchised 9.1M out of 62.7M voters out of which 2.7M were eligible, 3.4M appeals were pending, but could not vote. It also added 700K unknown voters with no details provided. Also, the BJP-led union government transferred 483 senior government officials after elections were declared and the Model Code of Conduct was declared (earlier coverage).