New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday, October 22 predicted that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will form the next government in Punjab, saying voters in the state would root out the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in the 2027 Assembly elections, ANI reported. Shah was speaking in Dwarka, Delhi, at the inauguration and foundation-stone ceremony for 43 Delhi Jal Board projects worth Rs 8,941 crore aimed at cleaning the Yamuna.
Source: ANI via DevDiscourse
"I want to tell Kejriwal that the people will give you a befitting reply by rooting out the AAP government from Punjab. You only engaged in politics through agitations and protests. You did nothing to clear the towering heaps of garbage from Delhi," Shah said, targeting AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, according to ANI.
Source: ANI via DevDiscourse
The Unmute reported Shah as saying in Hindi, "Punjab mein is baar NDA ki sarkar honey jaa rahi hai" — Punjab is set to install an NDA government this time. India Hunt reported Shah as claiming that people in Punjab wanted an NDA government and that the state's drug trafficking problem would be ended after an NDA government was formed. These are Shah's claims and predictions, not election results.
Source: The Unmute
Attack on Congress over 'vote theft' allegations
Shah also attacked the Congress, asserting it would not be able to win elections even by 2030 because of what he called its "negative politics". Accusing Rahul Gandhi of raising 'vote theft' allegations to safeguard the vote bank of infiltrators, Shah said: "I want to tell Rahul Gandhi that you want to save the votes of infiltrators by levelling allegations of vote theft. The Congress has not been elected in several states for decades, and this trend began long before PM Modi came to power." He added: "Your turn will not come for the next 30 years," ANI reported.
Source: ANI via Daily Prabhat
The remarks come as parties step up activity ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections. AAP won 92 of the state's 117 Assembly seats in 2022. On September 30, at the culmination of the BJP's Nasha Mukt Punjab Yatra in Jalandhar, Shah had pledged that a BJP government would make Punjab free of drugs by December 31, 2029 — a promise AAP and the Punjab Congress had criticised at the time.
No response from AAP Punjab or the Punjab Congress to Thursday's remarks had been reported in the sources checked at the time of publishing. The Unmute reported that political observers viewed Shah's NDA remark as a possible precursor to an electoral understanding between the BJP, the Shiromani Akali Dal and breakaway Akali factions; no such alliance has been formally announced, and Awaaz Punjab is reporting the observers' reading as interpretation, not as an announced agreement.
Source: The Unmute