Analysis: Punjab BJP Strategy On Congress Imports Squeezing Out Veterans

The sidelining of the original cadre is not limited to those who resigned or revolted. It is equally visible in the quiet demotion of men who once defined the Punjab BJP.

14 Sep 2026, 15:42 · NDTV

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BJP’s rural Punjab strategy favors Congress turncoats over veteran Hindu leaders, causing backlash
Senior BJP leaders in Punjab have revolted against organisational restructuring of its leadership
Key posts given to ex-Congress leaders like Sunil Jakhar and Kewal Dhillon, sidelining old guard

Chandigarh:

BJP's poll strategy to woo rural Punjab voters has backfired because the party preferred turncoat Jat leaders over stalwart Hindu leaders. Over a dozen senior party leaders, who spent years building the cadre and faced violence during the farmer protests, have internally revolted against the party high command.

Organisational restructuring has triggered deep internal friction, highlighting an underlying tension between the party's entrenched traditional cadre and a central leadership strategy that increasingly favours political turncoats.

The first turncoat to get the plum post was Sunil Jakhar, a former Congress chief who, on July 11, 2023, became Punjab BJP chief, replacing party veteran Ashwani Sharma. Sharma was later made working president, but the party sidelined both Hindu leaders Jakhar and Sharma by appointing a Jat Sikh, Kewal Dhillon, as state president on May 28, 2026.

Dhillon is another high-profile political defector from the Congress. Reflecting the mood of the sidelined old guard, Sharma remarked that while official posts are transitory, the foundational role of key leaders remains enduring.

"The BJP believes in we and us, not I. The work of a karyakarta never ends. Posts come and go," Ashwani Sharma said.

Discontent within the Punjab BJP cadres has manifested in a wave of high-profile resignations and open revolts across various district and state-level tiers.

Jagmohan Singh Raju, a retired Indian Administrative Service officer, resigned as the state general secretary following Dhillon's elevation. The names of prominent figures like former Vice President Arvind Khanna and others were conspicuously absent from the August 2026 executive list.

Similarly, Sukhminder Pal Singh Grewal - who served the BJP for 34 years and held key posts including Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha president and Kisan Morcha national secretary-resigned from his primary membership on August 2, 2026, explicitly accusing the state unit of transforming into a Congress-dominated apparatus that systematically ignores veteran cadres.

"Sadly, the Punjab unit today is no longer the organization that inspired countless dedicated workers like me. The values of commitment, respect, sacrifice, and ideological loyalty appear to be steadily losing their place. Across Punjab, countless sincere and hardworking karyakartas feel neglected, unheard, and disheartened. Those who spent years strengthening the Party at the grassroots increasingly feel that their dedication has become invisible," Sukhminder Pal Singh Grewal said in his resignation letter sent to party's National President Nitin Nabin.

"It is heartbreaking to witness committed workers lose hope after giving their best years to the organisation. The morale of loyal karyakartas has suffered immensely, and this should concern everyone who believes in the Party's long-term strength," he added.

A Congress turncoat, Dhillon's elevation has not gone down well with the senior state leaders who are backed by RSS. They have accused the party high command of importing Congress culture into BJP by lopsided organisational reshuffle that sidelines foundational strongholds like Doaba and Majha while concentrating power in urban hubs.

Internal rebellions have equally disrupted regional units. Former cabinet minister and RSS-BJP veteran Tikshan Sud led an internal revolt against the central high command after Satish Thakur Bawa was abruptly removed from his role as Hoshiarpur district urban president a mere 15 days after assuming office, a move that sparked the mass resignation of over 111 local office-bearers. This resistance mirrored challenges from Hoshiarpur rural district President Yogesh Sapra against his removal.

The sidelining of the original cadre is not limited to those who resigned or revolted. It is equally visible in the quiet demotion of men who once defined the Punjab BJP.

Bhupesh Agrawal, one of the party's most senior veterans with a 40-year association whose father - former BJP MLA Shambhu Prasad - was killed by terrorists in 1987, openly criticised the high command for bypassing loyalists in favor of Congress turncoats.He is the one who was manhandled by dozens of farmers in 2021 when the party was at a receiving end due to farmer unrest.

Manoranjan Kalia of Jalandhar remains one of the oldest living organisational faces of the party - a former minister, a national executive member, and a leader who spent decades building the unit when it was still a marginal urban force. Today he is still wheeled out as a spokesman against the AAP government, but his name was missing in the August 2026 list which left him without any command.

Avinash Rai Khanna, a former MP and Rajya Sabha member who led the state unit through the hardest years, has been reduced to the role of elder statesman. He is respected in public memory and ignored in the new executive core. Shwait Malik, another former Rajya Sabha MP and ex-state president, occupies the same space - remembered for past service, excluded from present power.

Vijay Sampla's case is more layered: the prominent Dalit leader from the Doaba heartland, a former Union Minister of State and former Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), also did not find a place in the organisational list.

Som Parkash, another former Union minister of state, has been given the least glamorous of the residual jobs.

"As chairman of the disciplinary committee, Som Parkash is now the instrument used to issue show-cause notices to the Sangrur rebels. The man once positioned for leadership is reduced to policing those who still insist the party should be run by those who built it. Taken together, these five names complete the picture. The original Punjab BJP has not been expelled. It has been carefully preserved as a museum of past service-useful for speeches, useful for discipline, useless for power," says a senior BJP leader not wanting to be named.

BJP's internal mutiny does not stop here. The leadership changes catalysed ten resignations in the Faridkot local unit following the removal of Gaurav Kakad.

In Sangrur, Maninder Singh Kapil, a veteran of two decades and former district president, launched an open protest and initiated a "BJP Bachao Yatra" under the slogan "sangathan mantri bhagao Punjab BJP bachao" after being ousted just 13 days into his tenure, earning himself a subsequent show-cause notice.

Another Sangrur veteran, Randeep Singh Deol, echoed these anti-outsider sentiments, characterising state general secretary Manthri Srinivasulu as an external actor running a dictatorial regime, while former state cells coordinator Jatinder Kalra similarly joined the chorus of dissent.

Amid this widespread disenfranchisement of the traditional cadre, Surjit Kumar Jyani stands out as a rare exception on the current executive list as a veteran former minister retaining the role of state vice-president as of August 2026.

"Because of such isolated retentions, the core grievance of the old guard is not that every single veteran has been purged, but rather that the premier leadership offices and the prominent socio-political positioning have been handed over to figures with deep roots in the Congress party," says a BJP leader.

The observers however, note that these appointments are part of a deliberate long-term calculation by the party high command to systematically pivot away from the party's historical perception as an urban-centric Hindu party in Punjab, opting instead to court dominant agrarian Jat Sikh demographics ahead of electoral milestones.

Psephologists say that the BJP is historically typecast as an urban-centric Hindu party with strong footprints in traditional municipal seats. The party's aggressive push to capture rural constituencies has forced a structural pivot. They say that by importing high-profile leaders from agrarian backgrounds and Congress legacy families, the BJP leadership aims to penetrate the rural core-though this strategic gamble risks alienating its foundational urban base.

Why BJP handed key leadership positions to Congress imports:

The BJP's strategic manoeuvre to penetrate rural Punjab has sidelined its foundational Hindu stalwarts and veteran cadres.

Driven by an aggressive calculus to capture dominant agrarian demographics, the central high command has consistently funnelled the most influential leadership positions to high-profile Congress imports.

This is not to say that all Congress turncoats got plum posts, and the saffron party was able to retain all of them. Several Congress leaders, including Dr Raj Kumar Verka, Gurpreet Singh Kangar and Balbir Sidhu, later returned to the parent party fold. Captain Amarinder Singh had also shown resentment several times as he has not been rewarded with a suitable berth.

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