SANGRUR SHOWDOWN GETS A RADICAL EDGE

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.

- Anilesh S. Mahajan

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. In the run-up to the bypoll, the two late entertainers find mention in the speeches of almost every candidate in the fray. 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. 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.

Deep Sidhu, who was accused of instigating Sikh youth to lay siege to Delhi's Red Fort on Republic Day in 2021 during the protests against the farm laws, died in a road accident on February 15, while Moosewala was shot dead on May 29. As 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. Moreover, the circumstances surrounding Moosewala's murder-his security cover had been halved a day earlier-have led to much public anger against Mann and his government. The Punjab Police has been unable so far to nab the killers or establish a clear motive for the murder.