Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, an independent candidate and son of Beant Singh—who assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, is currently leading in the Faridkot constituency in Punjab, India.
As per the Hindustan Times, after nine rounds of vote counting, Khalsa has garnered 49,439 votes, significantly ahead of his closest rival, Karamjit Singh Anmol of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), who has 29,927 votes.
Other competitors in the race include Rajwinder Singh Dharamkot of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) with 20,824 votes, Amarjit Kaur Sahoke of the Congress party with 20,441 votes, and Hans Raj Hans of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who trails with 11,182 votes.
Khalsa’s campaign resonated particularly well in the rural border constituency, where his narrative focused on Sikh issues, leveraging his father’s historical actions against Indira Gandhi as a form of justice for the 1984 assault on the Golden Temple.
His appeal was bolstered by endorsements from Sikh leaders and families affected by the 2015 post-sacrilege police firing, who actively campaigned on his behalf. Khalsa’s political legacy includes his mother, Bimal Kaur Khalsa, a former Lok Sabha MP from Ropar, and Sucha Singh, the grandfather who won the Bathinda parliamentary seat in 1989 representing the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar).
Khalsa enjoys substantial backing in five key assembly segments of the Faridkot constituency: Dharamkot, Baghapurana, Gidderbaha, Jaitu, and Faridkot.
