Radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, currently locked up at Dibrugarh jail in Assam under the National Security Act, will contest elections from Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha seat, according to his counsel.
“I met Amritpal Singh in Dibrugarh today. He has conveyed to me that he will contest elections from Khadoor Sahib,” said ‘Waris Punjab De’ chief’s lawyer and a former MP Rajdev Singh Khalsa.
Amritpal’s mother Balwinder Kaur, who is sitting on indefinite protest in Amritsar demanding shifting of Amritpal and other nine NSA detenues to Punjab, said: “Amritpal’s father and uncle are going to Dibrugarh to meet him and we will comment on the matter only after the meeting.”
The latest development has triggered speculations that the Shiromani Akali Dal may field him from Khadoor Sahib, the only Lok Sabha constituency out of 13 in Punjab from where the Akalis are yet to declare a candidate, or support him as an Independent.
When contacted, senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia didn’t rule out the possibility of Amritpal being fielded from Khadoor Sahib, a predominantly rural Sikh-dominated constituency with a strong ‘Panthic’ character. “We are in touch with many Panthic candidates, including Amritpal,” Majithia said, adding that SAD is against registration of cases against the draconian provisions of the NSA, and have supported Amritpal’s wife when she was not allowed to travel abroad.
{{/usCountry}}When contacted, senior SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia didn’t rule out the possibility of Amritpal being fielded from Khadoor Sahib, a predominantly rural Sikh-dominated constituency with a strong ‘Panthic’ character. “We are in touch with many Panthic candidates, including Amritpal,” Majithia said, adding that SAD is against registration of cases against the draconian provisions of the NSA, and have supported Amritpal’s wife when she was not allowed to travel abroad.
{{/usCountry}}The SAD had made release of Sikh detainees and shifting of Amritpal and his aides from Assam to Punjab as a precondition for re-stitching alliance with the BJP but the talks failed. Amritpal’s native village Jallupur Khera falls in the Khadoor Sahib parliamentary segment.
Amritpal was arrested in Moga’s Rode village on April 23 last year following a more than one-month-long manhunt and the stringent NSA was invoked against him. The Khalistan sympathiser had escaped the police net in Jalandhar district in March last year, switching vehicles and changing appearances.
The Punjab Police had launched the crackdown after the February 23 incident last year in which Amritpal Singh and his supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, broke through barricades and barged into the police station in Ajnala, and clashed with police for the release of Lovepreet Singh Toofan, one of his aides.
Human rights lawyer Navkiran Singh said there is no bar on contesting an election by a detainee under any Indian law. “As per Section 8 (3) of R. P. Act, 1951, if a person is convicted of any offence and sentenced to an imprisonment of 2 years or more, this will be disqualification to contest elections. To my mind, preventive detention does not invite disqualification,” he added.
Former Punjab advocate general Vinod Ghai said: “According to section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, no person can vote at any election if he is confined in a prison, whether under a sentence of imprisonment or transportation or otherwise, or is in the lawful custody of the police. However, law provides for voting rights of those under preventive detention.”