CHANDIGARH: The announcement by BJP, declaring  two candidates from Punjab  Lok Sabha seats of Amritsar and Gurdaspur has annoyed its alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for not taking it into confidence on seat sharing.

The party sources said here Friday that SAD leadership was not consulted by BJP before declaring names of sitting MP's Navjot Singh Sidhu from Amritsar and Vinod Khanna from Gurdaspur. The decision  was taken at party's central election committee held at Delhi in which names of six candidates including L.K.Advani candidate for PM's post from Gandhi Nagar (Gujarat) were cleared. The other candidates belonged to Himachal Pardesh and Goa.

The announcement of candidates for two Lok Sabha seats in Punjab is considered significant because BJP here has alliance with SAD while in  Gujarat and  Himachal Pardesh BJP has independent standing and holds power both the states. In Goa BJP didn't have high stakes and no formal alliance with any party. Presently Congress led coalition government is ruling in Goa.

SAD leaders in Punjab who are busy in civic elections were taken aback on hearing the news about candidature of Sidhu and Khanna. Daljit Singh Cheema SAD secretary and spokes person told The Pioneer that no formal discussion was made by BJP with SAD before announcement of seats. He however said that it was well known that BJP has its stake in Amritsar and Gurdaspur.

The reports suggested that BJP has also short listed its candidates for some more seats in Punjab even though the alliance partners have not discussed the matter at any stage so far. It is expected that BJP may demand bigger share in the Lok Sabha on the basis of its strength of 19 MLA's in the present Vidhan Sabha. BJP had contested on 22 Vidhan Sabha seats.

The BJP had confronted its alliance partner in the recently concluded Panchayat elections and Municipal Committee elections being held on June 30 on the issue of allotment of bigger share in the seats. Following resistance by SAD, the BJP had fielded its candidates against Akalis on many seats that let to violence and protests. The situation had turned so grim that all BJP MLA's had offered to resign. It is understood that that same strategy BJP is expected to adopt for Lok Sabha poll.

In 2004 Lok Sabha BJP had contested three seats and had won all the them. The third seat of Hoshiarpur is held by Avinash Rai Khanna former state BJP president.  In the 2007 assembly elections BJP had won 19 out of 22 seats contested by it. While SAD had won 67 seats out of 116 (one seat added to SAD tally later). The vote percentage of SAD and BJP in assembly elections was 37.09 and 8.28 respectively.