Two Independent Candidates Win in Panjab

Two independent candidates, Amritpal Singh and Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, won the elections from Khadoor Sahib and Faridkot, respectively. Amritpal defeated INC’s Kulbir Singh Zira by a margin of 197K votes – the highest among the thirteen seats in the state. Amritpal is the chief of the Waris Punjab De outfit and has been lodged for over a year in Assam's Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act. His work in Panjab started in late 2022 with the anti-drug campaign, amrit prachar (Sikh initiation ceremony), and grew strident over asking Sikhs to maintain their self-respect, hinting at Khalistan. Another independent candidate, Sarabjeet, son of Beant Singh, one of the two assassins of former PM Indira Gandhi, won from the Faridkot seat. He unsuccessfully fought the 2004 general elections from Bathinda on the SAD (Amritsar) ticket and the 2007 Panjab assembly elections from Bhadaur in Barnala. In 1989, Sarbeet’s mother Bimal Kaur Khalsa and grandfather Sucha Singh were both elected as Members of Parliament (MP) from Ropar and Bathinda, respectively  on SAD (Amritsar) tickets. Over time, Khalsa developed differences with Simranjit Singh Mann, head of SAD (Amritsar), and decided to contest independently. While both these wins might be considered a return to Panthic (Sikh community) politics, the reasons for these wins lie in public sympathy they could generate, overkill by security forces during Amritpal’s arrest in Mar to Apr 2023, unresolved Panjab issues which include the tenuous India-Panjab relationship, river waters issue, agrarian distress, drug abuse, human rights violations, and lack of faith in traditional parties. They point to a chasm in Sikh politics where no political party is able to voice Sikh concerns. Now the so-called hardliners have come in democratically. It remains to be seen whether they will be heard.