Shiromani Akali Dal core committee meeting on March 22 to finalize Lok Sabha election strategies

Rupnagar (Punjab) [India], March 19 (ANI): Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) party leader Daljit Singh Cheema announced the date of the party's core committee meeting stating that the party will primarily focus on the strategies for the upcoming Lok Sabha election.
"The core committee meeting is going to happen on March 22 at the party head office in Chandigarh. The election strategy of the Parliamentary elections will be finalised. Furthermore, the political situation of the state where everything happening at the national level will also be thoroughly discussed in the core committee," said Daljit Singh Cheema.
"As far as alliances are concerned, I don't want to make any speculations. Whatever would be decided, it will be conveyed through media," he added.
Earlier, on a day the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) named its candidates for 8 of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal denied reaching any alliance with the BJP but did not entirely rule out the possibility of a tie-up in future.
The Akalis were partners of the BJP earlier in the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre and the two even contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the state together but failed to come up with the goods.
However, seeking to dispel rumours that the two parties could be costing up again ahead of the Lok Sabha polls and might even announce a seat-sharing deal in Punjab, the SAD chief said neither his party nor the BJP has any knowledge of an alliance in the state.
Claiming that such speculations were only confined to social media platforms, he said his party was keen to continue its tie-up with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the state.
The SAD snapped ties with the BJP and exited the NDA in September 2020 over the contentious farm laws of the Centre. The laws, however, were repealed later in the face of farmer protests. (ANI)