Gurgaon: Ahead of Assembly polls in Punjab, BJP on Friday invoked the pain and memories of the 1947 Partition to reach out to the Punjabi community in Haryana.At an event in the city attended by the party’s senior state and central leaders, families displaced from areas now in Pakistan were honoured. The event, organised to mark ‘Vibhajan Vibhishika Smriti Diwas’, brought together families from across Haryana whose roots lie in present-day Pakistan. A documentary on the “horrors of Partition” was also screened, putting the suffering of those who lost homes and livelihoods at the centre of the programme.The presence of BJP’s senior leadership gave the event a distinctly political significance. National president Nitin Nabin, Union ministers Manohar Lal Khattar and Rao Inderjit Singh, state minister Rao Narbir Singh, MPs, MLAs and senior party functionaries attended the programme.Nabin paid tributes to those who lost their lives, homes and livelihoods during the upheaval. He said remembering the tragedy was “not to create animosity but to draw lessons from history and strengthen national unity, integrity and social harmony”. He also urged people to familiarise younger generations with the freedom struggle, Partition and the country’s history.Khattar said the events surrounding Partition should be preserved in history and included in the national curriculum so that younger generations understand the scale of the tragedy.But in all this, the political subtext was difficult to miss. By bringing together families with roots in present-day Pakistan, BJP was not merely commemorating a historical trauma, it was also speaking to a community whose memories, identities and family histories remain closely tied to Punjab.For BJP, Haryana provides a natural bridge to Punjab. The state not just shares a border, history and cultural links with Punjab, thousands of families displaced by the Partition are settled here. The party is now seeking to turn those connections into political outreach as it tries to expand in Punjab, where BJP has a traditionally limited electoral footprint.Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini has emerged as a key face in the party’s outreach efforts. He has been making frequent visits to Punjab, attending community and religious events and increasingly using Punjabi cultural symbols, including a turban.Political analyst Ram Kanwar agreed that Haryana offered BJP “both geographical proximity and a political bridge to Punjab”. The Partition programme, he said, served a “dual purpose” — commemorating a traumatic chapter while bringing Punjabi-origin communities together and reinforcing a political narrative that the party hopes can travel across the state border.
