Jailed Victors: Amritpal Singh and Engineer Rashid Elected as MPs

In the recent Indian general elections, two candidates fought and won from behind bars. Amritpal Singh, the head of Waris Punjab De from Khadoor Sahib as an independent candidate in Panjab and two-time Member of Legislative Assembly Abdul Rashid Sheikh alias Engineer Rashid, as a candidate from Awami Ittehad Party’s (AIP) from Baramulla in Kashmir. While Amritpal is lodged in Dibrugarh, Assam charged under the National Security Act, Rashid who defeated former Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Chief Minister Omar Abdullah by a margin of over 200K votes is charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and lodged in Tihar Jail, New Delhi. Neither of them has been sentenced. Like Bibi Paramjit Kaur Khalra, the widow of slain human rights lawyer Jaswant Singh Khalra campaigned for Amritpal, Rashid's sons Abrar and Asrar campaigned for him. Both Amritpal and Rashid won largely due to public sympathy for them. On 9 Jun, Amritpal wrote to the Panjab govt. seeking a temporary release to take oath as the MP. Now SAD, which contested against him, is asking for his release. In J&K various political parties are raising the demand to free Rashid who is the only political leader from Kashmir incarcerated for over five years following the revocation of Article 370 in 2019. While both their wins are positive for Indian democracy, the law’s concern over allowing them bail or freeing them is that as MPs, both of them will have access to a level of secret papers to which common citizens do not have access. Not freeing them will impact their ability to function as representatives of citizens of their constituencies and place a question mark on India’s democracy (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 23, Story 3).