BJP Senior advocate – Senior advocate H. S. Phulka, who fought for the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in the presence of Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri and others at the party headquarters here on Wednesday (April 1, 2026).

After making his political debut with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2014, Mr Phulka became the leader of the opposition in the Punjab Assembly in 2017. However, in October 2018, he quit the MLA post expressing displeasure over the Congress government’s alleged failure to take action against those named in the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report for their alleged role in police action that led to deaths in sacrilege cases.

Later he left AAP and politics. In 2019, Mr Phulka was awarded the Padma Shri in recognition of his decades-long legal campaign to bring justice to the victims of the 1984 riots. After a gap of six years, in December 2024, he had announced his decision to join Shiromani Akali Dal.