In Punjab’s Faridkot, Indira Gandhi’s assassin’s son leads by massive margin

Lead margin: 70,246 (as at 5pm)

Education: Matric from Guru Nanak Public School, sector 36-D, Chandigarh in 1994-95

Politics: Independent candidate. Was in the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) and Bahujan Samaj Party earlier.

Biography: It was in the second week of March that Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, a resident of Mohali, decided to contest the Lok Sabha elections as an Independent after the residents of Punjab’s Faridkot reportedly approached him. On April 11, he officially announced his decision and hit the headlines as Sarabjeet is the son of Beant Singh, one of the two assassins of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

This is not the first election for Sarabjeet as he had earlier contested from the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat in 2004 on a Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) ticket when it was a reserved Scheduled Caste constituency and had got over a lakh votes. In 2007, he contested from the Bhadaur Assembly constituency on a SAD (Amritsar) ticket and lost. In 2014, he contested from the Fatehgarh Sahib Lok Sabha seat, this time on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket, only to lose again.

The 2024 Lok Sabha election was Sarabjeet’s first electoral contest as an Independent. His election symbol was a farmer with a sugarcane. “First is my lucky date. I was born on the first, got married on the first and became an MP too by getting polled on the first,” Sarabjeet said, referring to the elections that took place in Punjab on June 1.

It was on October 31, 1984, that Sarabjeet’s father Beant Singh and another security guard, Satwant Singh, assassinated then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for Operation Blue Star, the Army operation to flush out Khalistani militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. In 1989, his mother Bimal Kaur Khalsa and grandfather Sucha Singh Khalsa became MPs from Ropar and Bathinda Lok Sabha seats on SAD (Amritsar) tickets.

Sarabjeet’s campaign picked up pace in the last 10 days with the massive response to his roadshow in Kotkapura and Faridkot on May 23 raising a few eyebrows. People started attending his meetings and campaigns voluntarily and stopped attending meetings of other candidates, especially those from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Sarabjeet contested against actor-singer Karamjit Singh Anmol, the AAP candidate from Faridkot and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s friend. Several celebrities from the Punjabi film industry, including Gippy Grewal, Sonia Mann, Sippy Gill, Rupinder Rupi and Nisha Bano, had visited Faridkot to address poll rallies for Anmol even as actor Binnu Dhillon stayed with him throughout the campaign.

Sarabjeet said that out of 650 villages in Faridkot, he had personally visited over 400 villages. He said his main agenda was to get the culprits of the sacrilege incident at Bargari village in Faridkot district punished and to work towards making the constituency free from the drug mafia. He even said that it was high time to support the Sikh Panth and highlighted how Beant Singh stood by his principles and gave his life for the Panth. The family of Satwant Singh had also campaigned for Sarabjeet.

“No celebrations will happen till June 6 (the anniversary of Operation Blue Star is observed from June 1-6). No one will distribute anything sweet,” Sarabjeet said. “I will pay obeisance at Golden Temple tomorrow. I am thankful to all who voted for me,” he added.

Faridkot’s history: Faridkot voters are very vocal. In 1977, they had elected SAD’s Parkash Singh Badal as their MP and in 1998, they had elected his son Sukhbir. In 1999, Faridkot residents had dared to defeat Sukhbir by electing Congress’s Jagmeet Singh Brar even though Parkash Singh Badal had formed a government in Punjab in 1997 with a thumping majority of 95 seats in alliance with BJP. In 2004, they re-elected Sukhbir. In 2009, the constituency was converted into a Scheduled Caste seat and SAD’s Paramjit Kaur Gulshan won. In 2014, the constituency chose AAP’s Sadhu Singh who defeated Gulshan by over 1.7 lakh votes. In 2019, Sadhu Singh was defeated by over 82,000 votes and Congress’s Mohammed Sadique was elected. In 2024, the voters rejected all party candidates and picked an Independent.

Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa had shot to fame in 2004 when he bagged over 1.13 lakh votes from the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat on a SAD (Amritsar) ticket in his maiden attempt at the age of 25. SAD’s Paramjit Kaur Gulshan had defeated CPI candidate Kaushalya Chaman Bhaura then.