New Delhi: There is much more to the victory of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) chief Simranjit Singh Mann in the by-election for the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat in Punjab than the mere defeat of the newly-elected Aam Admi Party (AAP).
Let us look at the narratives that Mann set during the election campaign and also his quick assertions at a press briefing after the results of the by-election were announced on Sunday afternoon. When asked to express his immediate feeling after the victory, he accused the “Indian government” of “pressuring the Indian media” not to publish his statements during the election campaign.
He also mentioned the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), adding, “This victory has pushed all of them including the Congress, the BJP and its RSS and AAP to the corner.”
“This Hindutva government knows nothing about the Army. Why doesn’t [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi not retrieve the 900 square kilometres of our land that has been taken over by China in Ladakh?” he said, in response to a question about the issues he would take up in parliament.
He also mentioned the attacks on the Muslim community and said that the minorities were not safe in the country. He also promised to raise his voice in support of opening the Indo-Pak border at Wagah. “Pakistan falls short of wheat and it costs Rs 9,000 per quintal in Iran. That also needed to be realised,” he said.
Mann does not consider AAP his only rival. Asked if a fall in the AAP’s graph led to his victory, he said it were the efforts of his party cadres and the “direction given by Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale” (the slain Sikh separatist leader killed in Operation Blue Star) that resulted in his victory.
However, he was cautious not to talk of a separate Sikh state or Khalistan during his campaign. The national TV channels still dubbed him as an icon of Khalistan, based on his past record. His main poll plank was the demand to release the Sikh prisoners who were arrested during Punjab’s militancy phase, more than two decades ago.
“Our agenda in this election is the release of the Sikh prisoners who are languishing in jail for 30 years, and secondly the Sikh religion has been desecrated too much during the Badals’ regime in Punjab and (thirdly) the unconstitutional step (of the Modi government) of empowering the Border Security Force (BSF) by increasing its jurisdiction along the border by 50 kilometres into the state and this violates our constitution that mandates law and order as a state subject,” Mann told a BBC correspondent in an interview during the election campaign.
The Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal tried to counter Mann by fielding Balwant Singh Rajoana’s sister Kamaldeep Kaur. Rajoana was convicted for the assassination of Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in a deadly bomb blast on August 31, 1995 and then sentenced to death on August 1, 2007 by a special CBI court in Chandigarh. On May 2, 2022, the Supreme Court had directed the Union government to decide within two months the Rajoana’s plea that his death penalty be commuted to life imprisonment on ground of his long incarceration of nearly 26 years.
But the move did not bear fruit.
Of the total nine assembly segments – Dhuri, Lehra, Barnala, Sangrur, Bhadaur, Dirhba, Sunam, Malerkotla and Mehal Kalan – in the Sangrur Parliamentary constituency, Mann had the biggest lead over his nearest rival Gurmail Singh of AAP in Muslim-majority Malerkotla. His overall victory margin was 5,822 votes more than the AAP candidate.
On the penultimate day of the election campaign on June 20, Mann began his speech in Malerkotla by greeting the masses with “As-salamu alaykum” and “Waheguruji ka Khalsa, Waheguruji ki Fateh” and stated that the RSS and its Hindutva agenda creates fear in the minds of the minorities to an extent that the Sikhs and the Muslims were now reluctant to greet people in their own religious way.
He touched the Muslims’ chord by saying, “This (Malerkotla) is the city of the Muslims and I was observing here that some Muslims were busy in their own acts during the time of the ‘namaaz’. I don’t like this because you should stick to namaaz at the time of your prayers.”
“I ask Modi, how is it possible that the comments of blasphemy by the BJP’s one ‘madam Sharma’ were made in her individual capacity. You (Modi) have a scheme to assimilate the minorities into Hinduism and this is the conspiracy of the RSS, because three days back Amit Shah gave statement that the government would re-write history and the Mughal raj wouldn’t be visible in history,” Mann echoed from the stage at his Malerkotla election rally,
He also spoke about the demolition of houses of Muslims in UP following the protests against the Prophet Muhammad remarks. “You tell me now that when our constitution permits us to express our grief, why are the houses of the Muslims razed to ground?” he asked.
He kept attacking the RSS and the BJP throughout, also mentioning the “killings of Kashmiri Muslims in fake encounters”. The Wire
