The formal announcement of the new party will be made at the Maghi Mela in Muktsar on 14 January, Tarsem Singh told the media Thursday.

“The new party will provide the sorely needed leadership to Punjabis and the Sikh community, the need for which has become acute because other parties have failed. Our party will be taking up the causes of Sikhs and Punjabis with the Centre and fight for more rights for the states,” Tarsem Singh said.

He said the new party would replace the SAD, which was on its way to “complete annihilation” as it had failed to reform itself.

“We would not have taken this path (of politics) had the Akali Dal managed to reform itself and get a new set of leaders. But it seems that the Badals are bent on finishing the Akali Dal and its legacy. This is the reason that we have had to take this call,” said Tarsem Singh. “Many people are unhappy with the working of the Akali Dal and they would rather join those who are going to truly work for the Sikh community, Punjab and Punjabiat. All those like-minded persons are welcome to join us.”

The new party will first prepare to contest the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) elections before deciding on entering the assembly race, Tarsem Singh said.

Member of Parliament from the reserved constituency of Faridkot, 45-year-old Sarabjit Singh Khalsa—who is the son of Beant Singh, one of the two assassins of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi—will be among those running the new party.

Amritpal Singh, a 32-year-old Dubai-returned Sikh radical, leapt to political prominence when he won the 2024 parliamentary election as an independent candidate from Khadoor Sahib with a record margin of over 2 lakh votes despite being in jail.

He was detained under the National Security Act (NSA) in April 2023 and is lodged in the Dibrugarh jail in Assam. In his absence, his family, including his parents, had campaigned on his behalf.

Amritpal was working in his uncle’s transport company in Dubai when he returned to Punjab in 2022. He became a baptised Sikh and started moving around Punjab villages, initially speaking against rampant drug abuse and the need to baptise Sikh youth. Over time, he also started espousing the cause of Khalistan.

The self-styled preacher openly declared that he did not believe in the Constitution of India. Soon, the police cracked down on Amritpal and his men, arresting hundreds of his supporters and close associates. Amritpal himself was arrested after a month-long manhunt on 23 April last year.

The question is: will the new party succeed in taking on the SAD?

Harjeshwar Singh, a professor in the history department, SGGS College Sector 26, Chandigarh, told ThePrint the creation of the new political party would dent the Akalis but radical politics hasn’t always resonated with Punjab’s voters in the past.

“It is very clear that the new party is being created to claim the space that is up for grabs following the diminishing hold of the Akali Dal. But historically, radical politics has never accumulated a mass base in Punjab. Even during the peak of militancy in the state, Simranjit Singh Mann, who was a radical voice all through the 1980s and 1990s, managed to make only a tiny dent in Punjab politics,” said Harjeshwar Singh.

“The Panthic vote bank is generally an emotional vote bank which votes en masse or doesn’t get moved at all. Which explains why Amritpal got so many votes in the elections but that doesn’t mean that a political party made by him will also get the same response,” Singh added. “There is, however, no doubt about the fact that the creation of this new political party will harm the Akalis and it will certainly lead to polarisation between Sikhs and Hindus which to some extent might benefit the BJP.”

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Show of strength

The announcement of the new party at the Maghi Mela is being organised as a show of strength by the radical groups in an effort to contrast their appeal with that of traditional parties, especially the SAD.

The SAD’s electoral fortunes have dwindled since 2017 when it lost power to the Congress over its handling of the cases of desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib.

Its troubles deepened after its poor performance in the parliamentary elections, prompting a breakaway faction of the party to demand the removal of president Sukhbir Singh Badal.

The matter had gone up to the Akal Takht, the highest temporal body of the Sikhs which declared Badal ‘tankhaiya’ (sinner of the Sikh community) and ordered him to undertake a religious punishment while removing him as the President of the party.

Badal survived an assassination attempt last month during the course of his punishment and the Akal Takht gave the party additional time to remove him from the leadership.

After he completed his punishment, the party announced it would hold an Akali conference at the Maghi Mela to rejuvenate the party.

However, with the radical group’s announcement, two parallel conferences at the Maghi Mela are expected to turn into a showdown between the “moderate” Akali Dal and the “radical” Akali Dal.

The Maghi Mela is one of Punjab’s most important religious gatherings, held annually to mark the sacrifice of 40 warriors of Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the 10th and last Guru of the Sikhs, in the Battle of Muktsar in 1705.

Tarsem Singh said the name of the new party would be announced at the Maghi Mela.

“Apart from announcing the formation of a new political party, we will also set up a committee to finalise the name and the constitution of the party and its various wings at the Maghi Mela gathering. To begin with, I will be the working president and once Amritpal Singh comes out of jail, his name will be given for consideration to the committee,” he told the media.

The other people initially associated with the party include Paramjit Kaur Khalra, wife of slain human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra; the family of Satwant Singh, the other assassin who killed Indira Gandhi; and the family of Amrik Singh, an associate of Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

Posters announcing the new party at the Maghi Mela feature images of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, calling people to the “Punjab Bachao, Panth Bachao Rally”.

Political analysts are carefully watching the creation of the new party by the largely ‘radical’ group in a bid to fill the vacuum created by the gradually weakening ‘moderate’ SAD.

Experts point to the significance of the timing of the creation of the new party.

“As far as the Akali Dal is concerned, there is a general belief that they are down and out and following the punishment given by the Akal Takht, there is a possibility of its revival in the coming months. In case another Akali Dal has to be announced, this is the right time, from their point of view. This is because there are many fence-sitters in other parties who they believe would like to join them,” said Dr Pramod Kumar, chairperson of the Institute of Development and Communication, Chandigarh.

Dr Kumar added that the BJP in Punjab had followed the same strategy in Punjab.

“What the BJP has been doing for the past year is not very different. They have been pulling out Sikh faces from other parties and making them join the BJP with the idea of reducing the strength of the Akali Dal. But while all this might work theoretically, for it to play out on the ground, a deeper reading of the Punjabi electorate is required. Punjabis are practical people who are not going to be swayed by either extreme,” he said.

“Also, the people of Punjab have learnt from the experience of the 1980s and 1990s and are not likely to repeat their mistake.”

Dr Kanwalpreet Kaur, a political science professor at DAV College in Chandigarh, told ThePrint the timing of the new radical party’s formation was well thought out as there was already some restlessness within the Sikh peasantry, the core vote bank of the SAD.

“The farmers’ agitation which began in 2020 has not ended in Punjab. The agitation keeps getting revived by some section of farmer leaders or the other. The peasantry is, as a result, in a state of constant flux,” said Kaur.

Kaur said prominent farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal’s hunger strike, which had extended beyond 40 days, was beginning to gain political attention.

“Initially, he was ignored but now his agitation is drawing attention politically and also drawing traction from the masses. And the message that is going out is that the Centre is not ready to talk with the farmers which is forcing Dallewal to continue with his fast,” said Kaur.

“For a radical party talking about regionalism and fighting for the rights of the Sikhs with the Centre, talking about the unfair manner in which the Centre has treated Punjab and Sikhs, this is a ready and live example for them to latch on to. The timing of the creation of this party is well planned,” added Kaur.

Kaur said it was too early to tell how the party would perform electorally.

“But before the assembly elections, the party will participate in the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee election. The result of those elections will be seminal to the future of Amritpal’s party” she said.

Elections to the SGPC are expected to be held in the next few months. The process of completing the electoral rolls ended on 15 December.

(Edited by Sugita Katyal)

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