BJP Appoints Satish Poonia as Punjab In-Charge Ahead of Assembly Polls

Months ahead of the Punjab Assembly polls, the BJP has turned to the “brainchild” of its Haryana success, appointing Satish Poonia as its Punjab in-charge a day after he was made the party’s national general secretary. Poonia, 61, has also been retained as Haryana in-charge. He is from Rajasthan and represents the state in the Rajya Sabha . Poonia was made Haryana in-charge in July 2023, ahead of the 2024 Assembly and Lok Sabha elections. The BJP suffered a setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, winning five of Haryana’s 10 seats, compared with a clean sweep in 2019. Months later, however, it won 48 of the 90 Assembly seats on its own, securing a majority. Poonia was subsequently applauded within the party for his role in the Haryana victory. At the time, he attributed the success to poll management, campaign strategy and candidate selection, besides highlighting the decision to project Nayab Singh Saini as the chief ministerial face. Poonia began his political journey in 1982 with the ABVP and subsequently held organisational responsibilities in the BJP’s Yuva Morcha in Rajasthan. He became BJP Rajasthan president in 2019 and remained in the post until March 2023. He won the Amber Assembly seat in 2018 and subsequently served as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Rajasthan Assembly. In the 2023 Assembly elections, however, he lost from Amber even as the BJP returned to power in Rajasthan. Challenges ahead Unlike Haryana, Punjab presents a very different and arguably more complicated challenge. The BJP currently has only two MLAs in the 117-member Assembly and no Lok Sabha MP from the state. Its presence in the Rajya Sabha is stronger, with seven members from Punjab, including six former AAP leaders who joined the BJP together in April, as well as BJP-nominated MP Satnam Singh, the owner of Chandigarh University. Poonia will take charge at a time when the BJP is attempting to expand beyond its traditional urban pockets and build a wider organisational base after the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) walked out of the NDA in September 2020 over the now-repealed farm laws. While there is renewed speculation about a possible BJP-SAD alliance, both parties have so far maintained that they intend to go solo. For Poonia, the Punjab assignment is also a political homecoming. He served as the BJP’s Punjab in-charge of Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha from 2000 to 2004, a period during which the SAD-BJP alliance was existing in Punjab. “Nearly 22 years later, Poonia returns to a state where the BJP is seeking to establish itself as an independent political force,” a senior party leader told The Indian Express. But the party faces challenges beyond electoral arithmetic. Punjab continues to have a strong and politically influential farmers’ movement, with several organisations active under the banners of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), SKM (non-political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha. Managing the BJP’s relationship with the farming community is likely to be one of Poonia’s biggest challenges as the 2027 contest approaches. There is also an element of internal churn within the party. A section of the BJP’s old guard in Punjab has repeatedly expressed unease over what it describes as the growing influence of “Congress culture” within the party, particularly after the induction of several former Congress leaders into key organisational and political positions. Poonia’s Punjab assignment comes after the post remained vacant following the death of former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani in the Ahmedabad plane crash in June 2025. Narinder Singh Raina subsequently handled the responsibility as co-in-charge but has now been relieved of the charge. Poonia, who hails from the Rajput community in Rajasthan, is not the only BJP leader to have received a key organisational assignment. Tarun Chugh, a former national general secretary who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh in June this year, has been appointed Gujarat in-charge while Rajya Sabha MP Vinod Tawde has been made Uttar Pradesh in-charge.