The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s erstwhile ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Tuesday charged that the “Bharatiya Janata Party is the real ‘tukde tukde’ gang in the country today” and that the “saffron party has been splitting the country into pieces by setting one community against another”.

“So desperate is it (BJP) for power and has no scruples about taking the communal polarisation route and setting the country on communal flames,” Sukhbir said while speaking to reporters at Bathinda today.

He charged that the BJP first set the Hindus against the Muslims. “Now, it is determined to replay that evil game and re-enact the same tragedy in Punjab also. It is conspiring to set our peace-loving Hindu brethren in Punjab against their Sikh brethren with whom they have shared strong bonds of blood for centuries. The BJP wants to replace those bonds of blood with bloodshed,” he said in a hard-hitting broadside at his former ally.

The SAD chief said the BJP has been resorting to “dangerous conspiracies to sabotage the hard-earned atmosphere of peace and communal harmony” just for the realisation of petty political goals.

“The BJP leadership must realise that their party today has become the most powerful divisive force. It has been resorting to dividing the country and its people by spreading hatred in the name of religion,” Sukhbir said.

Referring to the continuing farmers’ movement against the Narendra Modi-led central government’s three controversial new farm laws, Sukhbir said the whole country except the BJP gratefully acknowledges the “debt which we owe to our patriotic farmers and soldiers”. “The BJP is provoking the people to deny that debt. It believes only in emotionally exploiting the farmers’ sacrifices but remains so ungrateful to them that it is painting them as anti-national. Today it is the farmers. Nobody knows what the BJP might say even about soldiers tomorrow if it suits that party. The farmers are hurt and angry against the BJP and not against the government,” he said.

Later, in a statement issued from the SAD headquarter in Chandigarh, Sukhbir said that “the SAD deems it its national duty to caution the countrymen against BJP’s desperate and destructive game-plan in Punjab. This party is so desperate for power that it has no qualms about making Punjabis thirst for one another’s blood and destroying the fabric of unity and fraternal love”.

Badal said it was “shocking and unbelievable” that a party which claims to take pride in India’s heritage was determined to destroy the foundations of that very heritage. “This is the heritage that has shown the path of peace, communal harmony and human brotherhood to the entire world. But the BJP is hell-bent upon playing havoc with this heritage and destroying the hard earned atmosphere of peace and communal harmony,” he said.

“Tukde tukde” is a term coined by the BJP and the RSS-affiliated groups to attack the Opposition and their supporters. Reeling under farmers’ protracted agitation against agri laws, the BJP dispensation has now charged that the “tukde tukde gang” was also behind the farmers’ movement.

One of the BJP’s oldest allies, the SAD quit the Modi government and subsequently the BJP-led NDA a few months ago in protest against its contentious farm laws.