This is the first time since the reorganisation of SAD in 1995 that the party has chosen a candidate from a militant’s family for a Lok Sabha poll. Hoping, perhaps, to cash in on the sentiments of the rural Sikh population in the Sangrur parliamentary constituency, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) led by Sukhbir Singh Badal has fielded Kamaldeep Kaur Rajoana, sister of Balwant Singh Rajoana, a jailed Babbar Khalsa International militant who is on death row for the assassination of then chief minister Beant Singh in 1995. The potential impact can be gauged from how comparable gatherings in recent memory-the antim ardas of slain Khalistani militant Jugraj ‘Toofan’ Singh at Cheema Khudi village of Sri Hargobindpur in 1990, and of two Sikhs who fell to police bullets during a 2015 protest in Behbal Kalan against alleged sacrilege at Bargari, Faridkot district-affected politics in the state.Īs Sidhu was said to be a Khalistan sympathiser and Moosewala had occasionally expressed secessionist sentiments, their deaths have tapped into the radical Sikh vein in the state’s political minefield. With lakhs flocking to the native places of Sidhu and Moosewala for their antim ardas (last prayers), no candidate can afford to ignore the emotions triggered by their deaths. In the run-up to the bypoll, the two late entertainers find mention in the speeches of almost every candidate in the fray. The seat was vacated by new chief minister Bhagwant Mann of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after he won the assembly election from the Dhuri segment in March. The untimely deaths within a span of four months of two young public figures from Punjab-actor-activist Deep Sidhu and singer Shubhdeep Singh alias Sidhu Moosewala-and the mammoth outpouring of emotions that followed each are likely to impact the Lok Sabha bypoll in Sangrur due on June 23.

Bhai jugraj singh toofan death