BJP ramps up Punjab campaign with new leaders, community outreach and anti-AAP rhetoric

Ahead of the 2027 state election, the BJP is deploying a multi-pronged strategy to break the AAP-Congress dominance in Punjab. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s February and July visits highlighted infrastructure pledges and a symbolic focus on the Ravidassia community, including renaming Adampur Airport after Guru Ravidas and inaugurating a new Jalandhar-Varanasi express service. The party has installed Kewal Singh Dhillon, a Jat Sikh industrialist, as state president to broaden Sikh appeal, while also inducting former Congress leader Ravneet Singh Bittu and ex-AAP Rajya Sabha member Raghav Chaddha to bolster its leadership bench.

A statewide “Samrasta Sankalp Abhiyan” campaign, timed with Guru Ravidas’s birth-anniversary celebrations, seeks to project a message of social harmony. Modi has repeatedly attacked the AAP administration on law-and-order and development, while also denouncing the Congress and former ally Shiromani Akali Dal. The BJP’s narrative emphasizes a “double-engine” government—aligned centre and state—to attract investment, jobs and self-reliance to Punjab.