Overview
- Phoolka, who built his public profile by pursuing justice for the 1984 anti-Sikh killings, joined the BJP on Wednesday at the party’s New Delhi headquarters in the presence of Hardeep Singh Puri, Manjinder Singh Sirsa and Tarun Chugh.
- He framed the switch as an ideological fit, called his 2014 move to AAP a mistake, recounted his own 1984 escape from mobs and said BJP leaders backed his decades-long legal fight.
- Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann welcomed him with a warning that politicians who leave voters mid-term rarely win again, pointing to Phoolka’s 2018 resignation as MLA.
- Phoolka earlier contested Ludhiana in 2014 with AAP, won Dakha in 2017, briefly served as Leader of Opposition, then quit posts in 2018–2019 to prioritize riot cases, earning a Padma Shri in 2019.
- His entry fits a wider BJP drive to court Sikh and Panthic leaders after years of Akali Dal churn, updating his unfulfilled 2024 plan to join SAD and potentially reshaping alliances before the 2027 Punjab polls.