Chandigarh: BJP on Thursday appointed Kewal Singh Dhillon as the party’s Punjab unit chief and shortly after the announcement he claimed the saffron party will form the government in the state after the 2027 Assembly polls.
The 76-year-old former MLA from Barnala, who will be the first Jat Sikh face to head the party unit, thanked the party leadership for entrusting him with a big responsibility, and said the first target is to form a BJP government in Punjab.
Dhillon, the industrialist-politician, replaces Sunil Jakhar, whose three-year tenure as Punjab BJP chief ends in July.
“Once we form the government in Punjab, we will make it the No. 1 state in all areas. After West Bengal, the lotus will now bloom in Punjab too,” he said.
Dhillon is a two-time former MLA from Barnala. He was elected legislator on the Congress ticket in 2007 and 2012. However, he was denied a ticket by the Congress for the 2022 state assembly polls.
Like many leaders, including former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, Sunil Jakhar and some others, Dhillon also switched over from the Congress to the BJP.
Dhillon joined the BJP in 2022 and was subsequently appointed vice president of the state unit of the party.
In February 2022, the Congress expelled him from the party for alleged anti-party activities. He joined the BJP in June, 2022 and was fielded by the party for the Sangrur Lok Sabha bypolls, which he contested unsuccessfully.
Dhillon replaces Jakhar, who was appointed as the BJP president in July, 2023.
Sources said that some state BJP leaders had been pushing for a Sikh face to lead the Punjab unit of the party.
The BJP has been trying to make inroads in the Malwa region of Punjab, where any party performing well stands to gain a good chance at forming the government.
In the 2022 assembly polls, AAP rode to power on the back of rich electoral gains it made in the Malwa belt.
Like Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Sangrur region is also the home base of Dhillon.
However, an uphill task awaits Dhillon as the party currently has just two legislators in the 117-member Assembly.
After Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) broke ties with the BJP over the now repealed farm laws more than five years ago, the saffron party has been trying to build its base in the state, where it has never formed government on its own.
As far as Dhillon’s business interests go, he built a major beverages group through the Dhillon Group and later also expanded into some other sectors.
He was born in the village of Tallewal, Barnala.
Dhillon’s journey over the years spans from the farmlands of Malwa, the boardrooms of multinational enterprises, to the floors of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha.
After completing his BA from SD College, Barnala, he left for abroad at the age of 19 years. He later moved to the United States, absorbing the best of enterprise and ambition, and returned to India in 1979.
His most celebrated corporate achievement was bringing PepsiCo into India to help the Punjab farmers at a time when terrorism was at its peak in the state and no investor was willing to risk capital there.
During the militancy period, Dhillon took the risk to secure the investment, establishing PepsiCo’s only concentrate plant in India at Sangrur, generating employment for thousands of youths.
It was the first such facility on Indian soil. He was subsequently honoured with the PepsiCo Worldwide Bottler of the Year Award, presented by the then US president George Bush.
Dhillon’s political calling was ignited in 1989 when he was offered the Congress ticket for the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat. In 2001, he was appointed vice president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC).
His formal electoral career began with the 2007 Punjab assembly elections, when he won the Barnala seat by defeating the incumbent SAD-BJP candidate Malkit Singh Keetu. He was re-elected in 2012.
After joining the BJP in June 2022, Dhillon brought with him decades of organisational experience and grassroots goodwill.
