India’s Akali—BJP Alliance: the 1997 Punjab Legislative Assembly Elections

Abstract

In the 11th Lok Sabha elections (May 1996), the BJP emerged as the largest single political party. As speculation intensified about the possibility of the BJP forming its first ever national government, one regional party, the AD(B), made a public declaration of support for the BJP’s claim, which surprised many observers. Why, they wondered, was the Sikhs’ premier political representative prepared to give support to the leading Hindu nationalist party? Was there not something fundamentally irreconcilable in AD(B)-supported Sikh agitation in favour of regional political and cultural autonomy as proposed in the ASR and BJP’s national agenda for a common national culture as espoused in Hindutva ideology? How could two such parties become political bedfellows?