Ludhiana municipal corporation polls: Date not out, but Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party starts ground work

LUDHIANA: Though the dates for the upcoming municipal corporation (MC) elections are yet to be announced, the political parties have started their preparations. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)’s local leadership has started meeting workers and contacting leaders of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). SAD and BSP will contest the elections in alliance as they did in the assembly elections. As of now, discussions are going on over division of seats between the parties, and the final decision will come from the state leaderships.
Recently, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal held a meeting with senior leadership in Ludhiana where he asked them to start the election preparation. The leaders claimed at the moment they were a little busy with the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) elections, and after that their entire concentration would be towards the Ludhiana MC elections.
The SAD district president Harbhajan Singh Dang said, “We have started calling the existing as well as former councillors for giving their applications to contest the elections, and some have already submitted them. We will be sending these applications to senior leadership for a final decision. Meanwhile, we are in talks with BSP for finalising their seats and strategy for the elections.” He claimed they can give a tough fight to other contenders.
However, the BSP district president Jeet Ram Basra said, “The state leadership will take a call on the seat division, but we will be asking for at least 30-35 seats in the city especially in North, South and East constituencies, as our party is quite strong in these areas.” He added they have started meetings at ground-level because the candidates are already selected. He said they will focus on issues like traffic, waterlogging and sewage choking .
In the previous elections, SAD was in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and both had secure 11 and 10 seats, respectively.