Once close allies—the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the BJP—were unable to forge a deal in Punjab, leading to the failure of their seat sharing negotiations,  with the BJP on Tuesday,  formally announcing it was going to go solo in the Lok Sabha elections.

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The BJP-SAD alliance in Punjab was once as thick as the alliance which the BJP had with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. But the Punjab ties were shredded over the farmers agitation a couple of years ago that was reinforced after the persistent distrust between the two sides that developed during the Modi regime.

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The two parties had originally come together to keep the Congress out of power by uniting their Sikh and Hindu vote banks. And they succeeded to some extent in achieving that goal. But the BJP’s strategy to become a pan-India party after 2014 hurt three key allies—the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, the Janata Dal (U) in Bihar and the SAD in Punjab. The Biju Janata Dal and the Trinamool Congress had quit the NDA before 2014.

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The issue now is whether the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi can check the ruling AAP, the Congress and the SAD against the backdrop of its opposition to the farmers agitation and without a credible Jat Sikh face. Former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh is with the BJP but he is ageing and thus may not be as effective as he once was in rallying voters in thus do or die electoral battle.

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The state bordering Pakistan has a large Dalit population. But no party has so far groomed a  Dalit leadership for different reasons.

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Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power because the Congress had mishandled its internal power struggle. The high command had virtually sacked its chief minister Capt Amrinder Singh and brought in the former BJP leader Navjot Singh Sidhdu as its Punjab Congress chief without consulting Amarinder Singh, suggesting that he would succeed him only to finally make Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit ,the chief minister.

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Supposedly the brainchild of Congress strategist Ambika Soni, the move backfired, sending out a wrong message to the Congress party workers and sympathisers who openly admitted to voting for AAP and Arvind Kejriwal. A Haryanvi overnight became the king maker in Punjab.

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Now, there will be no re-union of the BJP and SAD , an alliance that fractured in September 2020 amid sharp differences over the centre's (now-scrapped) three farm laws - ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha election. The BJP this week confirmed it will contest the state's 13 seats on its own.

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Many Akali leaders believe the BJP wanted to piggyback on their party and its vote base to reach its target of 400 seats for the party-led National Democratic Alliance. The Akali's fear was also that the BJP would demand more seats for the 2027 state assembly election, if the Lok Sabha exercise were to be successful.

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The Akali supremo Sukhbir Singh Badal said his party is "not just driven by number games... we are a 103-year-old movement with a clear vision, and we have always stood by our principles".

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"The Akali Dal has made our position and priorities clear... it is principles above politics and issues above any political numbers. Our party is committed to safeguarding Panth and Panjab," he said.

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Last week too the Akali gave a broad outline of these concerns, and said it would "continue to put principles above politics... and never deviate from its historic role as a champion" of all Punjabis.

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"As the sole representatives of the Sikhs and of all Punjabis, the party will continue its fight for more powers and genuine autonomy to the states," it said, in a resolution seen as tacitly accepting the party's decreased status among Punjab voters.

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The Akalis going solo means Punjab's 13 seats will see a four-way contest, with the Congress and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party also in the fray. The Congress and AAP are both members of the INDIA opposition bloc but so far, appear unlikely now to agree on any seat-sharing deal.

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In 2019 Lok Sabha elections , the Congress - then led by Capt Amarinder Singh - claimed eight of the state's 13 seats. The BJP and the Akalis won two each. The AAP got one.

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In the 2022 assembly elections the two contested separately, and were each wiped out. The Akali Dal won just three seats (four including its ally Bahujan Samaj Party's sole seat) while the BJP got just two.

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That was a sharp decline in fortunes for the Akali Dal. Five years earlier it had won 15 of its allotted 94 seats but the BJP fared just as poorly - winning only three seats. This, in turn, was five years after the Akali-BJP combine won the election; the Akalis won 56 of its 94 seats and the BJP 12 of its 23.

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For the 2024 Lok Sabha election, Punjab votes in a single phase on April 19.