Akali leader and ex-SGPC member Ajit Singh Chandurayan joins BJP

Chandigarh. Around 60 serving and former sarpanches, nambardars and block-level representatives from Malerkotla district joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Chandigarh on Thursday, following former Punjab State Information Commissioner Ajit Singh Chandurayan into the party.

Chandurayan, a senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader and a former member of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), was inducted with his supporters at the Punjab BJP headquarters, where state party president Kewal Singh Dhillon handed them primary membership slips.

The induction comes ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections.

Welcoming the new members, Dhillon said Chandurayan’s long administrative and socio-religious experience would strengthen the party’s organisation in Malerkotla and the surrounding areas.

“The BJP’s caravan in Punjab is expanding every single day,” Dhillon said. “Eminent personalities, grassroots leaders and citizens from every section of society are placing their trust in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s inclusive governance and development agenda. The growing influx into our ranks is a testament to the changing political tide in the border state.”

Turning on the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Dhillon alleged that in its four and a half years in power, the AAP government had sent Punjab’s growth into reverse instead of taking the state forward.

“The state has been pushed into a deep morass of rampant drug trade, gang violence, daylight extortions and complete administrative paralysis. Law and order has collapsed to a point where citizens no longer feel secure even inside their homes,” he said.

According to Dhillon, traders, farmers, state government employees and unemployed youth have all been hit by what he called the government’s “false promises”.

Laying out his party’s pitch, the Punjab BJP chief said only a “double-engine government”, with matching development agendas at the Centre and in the state, could restore peace, revive industry, create dignified jobs for young people and bring prosperity back to Punjab.