Sukhbir Badal likely to meet Amit Shah on November 13, SAD-BJP alliance may be announced this month

After months of speculation over a possible re-alliance between the old partners Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly election, a likely meeting between SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on November 13 is being viewed as a move toward sealing the alliance.

SAD sources said that Mr. Badal is expected to leave for New Delhi in the second half of the day, after his rally at Raikot, to meet Mr. Shah. It is expected that the talks surrounding the seat sharing and finalisation of the alliance for the Punjab election would be on the agenda. Even as leaders from both parties remained tight-lipped about the deliberations, the sources indicated that the announcement about the alliance could be made within November.

In August this year, Mr. Badal had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, where the possibility of renewing the alliance was discussed. A SAD source had confirmed that, with discussions underway, an alliance could materialise.

The SAD and the BJP were alliance partners since the late 1990s, however, amid the controversy over the Centre’s agriculture sector laws, which were later repealed, the SAD — one of the BJP’s oldest alliance partners — decided to break away from the NDA coalition in 2020.