Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Badal meets PM Modi, raising speculation on SAD-BJP alliance

With Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (August 7, 2026), speculation about the possibility of an alliance between the old partners (SAD-BJP) has once again taken center stage ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly election.

Mr. Badal met the Prime Minister at his office in the Parliament House complex in New Delhi, according to sources familiar with the meeting. Even as leaders from both parties remained tight-lipped about the deliberations, the speculation was rife that the two parties could join hands again.

Senior party leader Daljit Cheema declined to comment on the alliance for now, stating only that talks had taken place. “The leaders have met, that’s all,” Mr. Cheema told The Hindu.

A source from the SAD said that with talks currently underway, the possibility of an alliance could take shape. “Even people within the BJP are sensing that the political landscape in the country is shifting in light of the recent protests. The parties opposed to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are joining hands and there’s now a sense within the BJP that the NDA, too, should unite everyone and bring its allies together,” the leader said.

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since the late 1990s; however, amid the controversy over the Centre’s agriculture sector laws, which were later repealed, the SAD – one of the BJP’s oldest alliance partners- decided to break away from the NDA coalition in 2020.

Political observers feel that the meeting has been publicised, it indicates that the outcome is positive in terms of the alliance, otherwise, the meeting would have been kept secret.

“If the SAD and BJP contest independently, then both parties will end up contesting against each other for the third or fourth position and the main contest would be between the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress. Fighting in alliance would bring SAD and BJP in the reckoning,” said Pramod Kumar, director of the Institute for Development and Communication, Chandigarh.

“The political positioning of both the parties was becoming vulnerable every day. The logical outcome to overcome that vulnerability was to enter into an alliance. But this alliance, if it is based on the Moga declaration of 1995 (through which the SAD avowed to stand for ‘Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat’) it will ensure not only peace and harmony but would take Punjab forward towards development mode. If both fight independently, then things could tend toward polarisation,” he added.