SAD-BJP alliance rock solid: Sampla

Amidst reports over the fate of alliance between SAD and BJP in Punjab, state BJP chief Vijay Sampla today said the coalition is "rock-solid" and will go to the Assembly polls next year together.
He was reacting to reports in a section media that BJP's Central leadership has kept its options open and that the party is weighing its polls prospects with and without having an alliance with Shiromani Akali Dal.
The union minister dismissed the report as "baseless and misleading".
"I have said it earlier and reiterate it now that SAD-BJP alliance is fully intact and the ruling partners will contest 2017 assembly elections together," he said.

On whether there was any attempt to increase the party's seat share from present 23 or swap any urban seats with ruling ally SAD, Sampla said these are not the main issues.
"The main issue and target is to make a clean sweep in the 2017 polls for a hat trick of SAD-BJP government and making Parkash Singh Badal CM for the sixth term," he said.

He said the seat-sharing issue, if it arises, would be mutually settled.
"However, there was no such issue at all and the lone issue was to win the polls hands down," he asserted.
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Meanwhile, Sampla, who is also Union Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, told a delegation of Punjab Handicapped and Blind Union that artificial limbs, wheelchairs, and electric sticks would be provided free of cost to physically and visually challenged persons or to those with other disabilities.
The delegation led by its President Lakhwinder Singh Saini, met Sampla in the office of SGPC member Sarwan Singh Kular on the premises of Gurdwara Sukhchainana Sahib where Sampla had gone to pay obeisance.