Jailed Khalistani preacher Amritpal Singh wins from Punjab's Khadoor Sahib seat

Jailed Khalistani preacher Amritpal Singh has won from Punjab’s Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha seat. He contested elections as in Independent candidate, according to CNN-News 18.

Amritpal is currently lodged in Assam’s Dibrugarh and is booked under the stringent National Security Act (NSA). He was arrested last April in Punjab’s Moga after being on the run for over the month.

Amritpal’s nearest rival was Kulbir Singh Zira of the Congress party and Laljit Singh Bhullar of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha constituency is spread across the states of Amritsar, Kapurthala, Khadur Sahib, and Tarn Taran. It went to polls in the seventh and final phase of voting on June 1.

Amritpal is the head of the organisation Waris Punjab De (WPD). At the time of his arrest, he and the WPD were accused in multiple criminal cases. They were also involved in an attack on a police station in Punjab in February 2023 when Amritpal and his supporters, some of whom were armed with swords and guns, broke through the barricades and barged into the Ajnala Police Station near Amritsar. They clashed with the police to free Lovepreet Singh Toofan, an aide of Amritpal.

Before his arrest, Amritpal had emerged as a leading voice for Khalistan in Punjab. He had also started styling himself after Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the late leader of the Khalistan movement who was killed in Operation Blue Star in 1984. As he copied Bhindranwale, he even visited the Golden Temple with his supporters wielding rifles and ammunition belts.

The Khalistan movement refers to the armed movement to carve out a separate state for the Sikhs out of Punjab state. For decades, the adherents of the movement waged a bloody insurgency in Punjab that only ebbed in the 1990s.