CHANDIGARH: Ahead of the 2027 Punjab assembly elections, Congress and BJP will both reconstitute their state units and appoint new unit presidents soon. Sources said that restructuring the state units are required if they wish to take the ruling AAP, which had emerged as a popular alternative to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).Congress had reconstituted the state unit earlier: the party appointed Amarinder Singh Raja Warring as Punjab Congress president, replacing Navjot Singh Sidhu after the 2022 assembly election debacle. The party, under Warring, won seven out of 13 seats in Punjab during the Lok Sabha election held last year. Senior Hindu leaders have begun to take efforts to secure better representation in the Congress state unit since AAP’s appointment of Aman Arora as the party’s Punjab president. Prominent Hindu leaders in Congress include former minister Brahm Mohindra, former speaker Rana KP Singh, joint treasurer of AICC Vijay Inder Singla besides others. On the other hand, the BJP is all set to appoint a new state unit president. The announcements are likely to come after the election of the national president this month. This follows the resignation of the incumbent Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar in November 2024 and the party’s incomplete membership drive in the state. The membership drive, stalled by simultaneous elections, is considered a crucial process for the upcoming organisational electionals which is a precursor to the internal elections to choose the president. BJP Punjab affairs in-charge Vijay Rupani recently presided over a high-level meeting focusing on the membership drive without Jakhar’s presence. Rupani made it clear that Jakhar is still the current president while, at the same time he stressed that there is a need for a robust organisation ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections. Three former Congress leaders who had shifted to the saffron party are in the race for the post of Punjab BJP president: former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Ex-MLA Kewal Dhillon and former minister Rana Gurmeet Sodhi. While Badal is reportedly backed of Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, Sodhi is backed by Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and Dhillion by Punjab BJP General Secretary (Organisation) M Srinivasulu. Other senior traditional BJP leaders who are in the race are former presidents Avinash Rai Khanna and Ashwani Sharma, National General Secretary Tarun Chugh, and Subhash Sharma. While a section of party leaders are backing the traditional leaders for the party’s top post in the state, some are backing former congress leaders. The BJP saw a surge in its vote share in last year’s lok sabha polls which almost doubled to 18.56 per cent from 9.65 per cent it got in 2019 but it could not win any of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
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