Under fire from anti-Badal parties over its ally Bharatiya Janata Party's plans to involve Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the Punjab campaign, the Shiromani Akali Dal appeared unlikely to register senior-level participation in any of his meetings on Sunday.
A senior SAD leader said he believed there was no need for the BJP to have roped in Modi in Punjab, where a sizeable section sees a parallel between the Gujarat and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
"Those meetings will be BJP's own," he said.
The Gujarat chief minister is scheduled to hold public meetings in Ludhiana and Jalandhar, where the BJP lost all the seats it fought in the last assembly elections.
Plans to send Modi to Punjab triggered strong reaction from Akali opponents of SAD chief Parkash Singh Badal as hardline leader Simranjit Singh Mann pledged statewide protests against his tour to the state.
Akalis are scheduled to hold joint public meetings with BJP leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Rajnath Singh during their visit to the state next week.
BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, who is in charge of the party's election programme, said Advani would also hold two public meetings in Amritsar on Sunday and one each at Bhoa and Batala.
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