Chandigarh, May 28 (IANS) Ahead of the Assembly elections in Punjab, the BJP national President on Thursday appointed a Jat Sikh face and former legislator Kewal Singh Dhillon, 75, a close confidante of former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, as the new state president, replacing Sunil Jakhar, the party’s prominent Hindu face in the state.

Political observers said the BJP’s decision to bet on Dhillon is part of a strategy to project a Sikh face in the Sikh-dominated Punjab with an eye on the 2027 Assembly elections.

Dhillon served as a Congress legislator from Barnala from 2007 to 2017 before being defeated by AAP’s Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, who is now the party’s Member of Parliament.

Dhillon joined the BJP in June 2022 along with Congress leaders after the party’s defeat in the Assembly elections.

He contested the Sangrur Lok Sabha by-election in 2022 and the Barnala Assembly bypoll in 2024, both on a BJP ticket, but lost both.

In September 2024, there were rumours about the resignation of Sunil Jakhar as state unit president, which was denied by the BJP. At that time, party sources had said Jakhar had been upset for some time over the state of affairs and had already apprised the top leadership about his unwillingness to work as the state party president.

At that time, there were rumours about his purported “differences” with the party. He had also preferred to remain absent from a meeting called by him to finalise the party’s strategy for the ongoing membership drive.

Currently, Jakhar was aggressively taking up issues relating to the state and participating in the party’s meetings and functions by travelling across the state.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in July 2023 appointed former Congress leader Jakhar as its state unit president.

Jakhar, one of the senior Congress leaders in Punjab, joined the BJP in May 2022, three months after the Assembly elections that the Congress lost.

A former Lok Sabha MP from Gurdaspur, Jakhar is a three-time MLA from the Abohar Assembly constituency. He is known for his plain speaking and straightforward approach. Jakhar had been the Congress chief in the state for four years before being replaced by Navjot Singh Sidhu in 2021.

–IANS

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