SAD, BJP to finalise strategy for Punjab bypolls on Saturday

Days after parting ways in Haryana, the SAD and the BJP will hold a meeting of their coordination committee on Saturday to finalise the strategy for the bypolls to four assembly seats in Punjab.

The meeting, which will be attended by Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and Punjab BJP president Shwait Malik, will be held in Jalandhar.

"A meeting of the coordination committee will be held on October 5 at 3 pm in Jalandhar. Sukhbir Singh Badal and Shwait Malik, along with their senior colleagues, will meet to finalise the strategy for the bypolls," SAD senior vice-president Daljit Singh Cheema tweeted on Wednesday.

The byelections to the four seats of Phagwara, Jalalabad, Dakha and Mukerian will be held on October 21.

Of the four seats, SAD is contesting on Dakha and Jalalabad seats while BJP is in contention from Phagwara and Mukerian.

The SAD and BJP leaders will focus on giving the final shape to the strategy following the scrapping of their alliance in Haryana.

The SAD had taken a strong exception to the induction of Kalanwali Akali MLA Balkaur Singh into the BJP fold in Haryana, described it as "unethical".

It had also accused the BJP of backtracking from its commitment of contesting the Haryana assembly jointly after "soliciting" support for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

However, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal had said that the alliance with the BJP in Punjab and Delhi was intact.

On Tuesday, in a tit-for-tat move, the SAD had inducted BJP's Haryana leader Rajinder Singh Desu Jodha into the party fold and declared his candidature from Kalanwali for the October 21 assembly polls.