In Tarn Taran, stakes go beyond bypoll for jailed MP Amritpal Singh's party
Amritpal Singh
's father, Tarsem Singh, his party's interest in contesting the Tarn Taran assembly seat bypoll is both symbolic and strategic. "Bhai Amritpal's followers want his party to contest to express support for him and his cause," he says.
The seat, left vacant after the death of AAP MLA Dr Kashmir Singh Sohal, has emerged as a critical political test for Tarsem — not just for votes, but for sentiment.
Amritpal, lodged in Assam's Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act (NSA), had secured a surprise victory in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from Khadoor Sahib despite being incarcerated. One of the nine assembly segments under the Khadoor Sahib constituency is Tarn Taran, where Amritpal received 44,703 votes in 2024.
The math, Tarsem believes, favours Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De). In the 2022 assembly elections, Dr Sohal had won by getting around 52,000 votes.
But numbers are only part of the equation. For 'Team Amritpal', the bypoll is about maintaining symbolic momentum. The panthic image cultivated by Amritpal — with clear echoes of the slain militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale — is central to his appeal.
Amritpal came to prominence in Sep 2022, controversially taking charge of Waris Punjab De, a group founded by the late actor-activist Deep Sidhu.
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His hardline image, vocal support for Khalistan, and a campaign urging youth to reject drugs and modern vices earned him mass attention and state scrutiny. The breaking point came in Feb 2023, when he and his supporters carried the Guru Granth Sahib — considered the living Guru in Sikhism — to Ajnala police station in Amritsar to free an aide.
This act, seen by many as sacrilegious, triggered a statewide crackdown.
After evading arrest for 35 days, he was captured in Rode — the same village Bhindranwale hailed from — and subsequently jailed in Assam.
Yet, in 2024, his Lok Sabha win was widely interpreted as a public rebuke of the govt's crackdown.
Keeping Amritpal's panthic image in mind, Waris Punjab De initially approached Paramjit Kaur Khalra, widow of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra, to contest the bypoll, but she declined. Focus then shifted to Satwant Kaur, who is part of the five-member committee opposing Sukhbir Badal's hold on Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
Waris Punjab De is banking on its panthic image in the bypoll. Tarn Taran's tilet for panthic candidates is visible in the last five assembly elections. The seat elected Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) Harmeet Singh Sandhu in 2002, 2007 and 2012. In the last two elections, he lost, but was a close second, as he got 45,156 votes in 2017 and 39,347 in 2022.
AAP, for its part, is banking on governance and development. Party spokesperson Shashivir Sharma said, "We have our work to show for it.
Our high command will present a strong and dedicated candidate focused on the development of Tarn Taran. What other parties do is their own business."
While the date of the bypoll is yet to be announced, Khalsa University vice-chancellor Mehal Singh remarked that development and drug eradication would likely outweigh identity politics. "There was a time when people voted for Amritpal, but that may not be repeated," he said.
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Both ran anti-drug campaigns
Both AAP and Amritpal have placed anti-drugs campaigns at the heart of their messaging — though the methods differed. AAP recently launched a broad crackdown on the drug trade, while Amritpal's grassroots campaign in 2022-2023 urged youth to embrace traditional Sikh values and reject addiction. Ultimately, for Amritpal's party, the stakes go beyond one seat. Winning Tarn Taran would be a step toward consolidating Amritpal's symbolic authority and sustaining a panthic narrative.
For his opponents, the bypoll will be a litmus test of how deep his influence really runs and whether it ends at the prison gates.
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