According to Anil Joshi, SAD stands for harmony in Punjabi community

Following the announcement of Anil Joshi, a former Cabinet minister, as the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate for the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency, Joshi declared his support for social peace among Punjabis and the general development of the border area.

For the first time, the SAD is running alone for the seat that has historically been controlled by the BJP when they were in an alliance with the SAD. Political analysts said that the SAD is carrying out the moderate Punjabi program that was decided upon at the Moga convention in 1996, at which point the organization abandoned its Panthic image. Anil Joshi has been fielded from the Amritsar seat as part of this agenda.

Joshi, who was twice elected as an MLA from the Amritsar North seat, said that he had gone to the Guru Sahibs to ask for their permission to do sewa in order to return to the people. He went on to say that he was fortunate to be a resident of this city, which Guru Ramdas had blessed. He sent greetings to everyone on Baisakhi and Khalsa Sirjana Diwas.

He was chosen to represent the SAD three years after joining the party in the famous Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency, where Taranjit Singh Sandhu of the BJP and Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal of the AAP have been nominated. The Congress has not yet revealed who it will be fielding for the Amritsar seat.

On August 20, 2021, Anil Joshi, who had been expelled from the BJP for six years due to anti-party activity, joined the SAD within forty days. He had served his party for thirty-five years, so he was disappointed when they showed him the door at that point. He had advocated that the Centre should speak with farmers and find a solution that meets their needs in a two-page response to the BJP’s notice. Furthermore, he had advocated for the settlement of farmers’ complaints in order to preserve peace among the many groups that make up Punjabi society.

Joshi, a former SAD-BJP coalition government minister for local bodies, medical education, and research, told the Tribune that he chose to join the SAD over other parties because, in addition to being a regional party, it understood Punjabis and stood for “Bhaicharak Sanjh” (communal harmony).

Previously, Navjot Singh Sidhu’s political career took off when a fierce battle broke out between him and SAD leaders Sukhbir Singh Badal and Bikram Singh Majithia. Joshi was formerly a close BJP ally of Sidhu, but their relationship has soured. In the SAD-BJP government of the time, Anil Joshi was appointed as minister.

Joshi was found not guilty on May 25, 2023, by a municipal court in a criminal trespass case that was brought in 2012 by attorney Vaneet Mahajan. Mahajan had claimed that, purportedly at Joshi’s request, Municipal Corporation representatives had demolished his lawfully built section of a hotel on Batala Road.

Anil Joshi’s father Kishori Lal, a retired government teacher, was assassinated by terrorists in 1991. He was born in the Sanghe village of Tarn Taran. After working as a farmer on his family’s farm in his village, he entered the textile industry.

In 1988, he joined the RSS and was elected as the Bajrang Dal district president. He brought a sizable number of Ram Bhakts to Ayodhya and was connected to the 1990 Ram Janam Bhoomi Mandir campaign. He rose to become Tarn Taran, the Mandal Pradhan of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was elected as the district president of the BJP’s Amritsar rural unit in 2002. Two years later, in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, he joined Navjot Singh Sidhu’s campaign team, which helped Sidhu win the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat.