Chandigarh: When the first announcement was made that Sikh extremist Amritpal Singh would be contesting the parliamentary elections from the Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha constituency, it came as a surprise to many, including his parents.
The declaration came 24 April from advocate Rajdev Singh Khalsa, who, acting as Amritpal’s legal counsel, stated that during a visit to Dibrugarh jail in Assam, he conveyed the Sikh community’s desire for Amritpal to run for office — a proposal Amritpal accepted.
Detained under the National Security Act, 1980, for over a year, Amritpal and his nine associates saw their confinement extended by another three months by the Union home ministry.
Following the announcement, Amritpal’s parents initially refuted Khalsa’s claims, however, after Amritpal’s father Tarsem Singh met him in jail, it was confirmed that Amritpal would indeed run as an Independent candidate from Khadoor Sahib.
“Khalsa ji showed a little hurry in announcing the decision,” Tarsem Singh told the media, adding that he might have done so to ensure there was no change of heart by Amritpal.
However, speaking to ThePrint, Khalsa said, “I carried the message of the Sikh Sangat (community) to Amritpal that they wished him to contest elections. The final decision was his. He is a wise man and knows the Sikh religion very well.”
But who is Rajdev Singh Khalsa, the man behind Amritpal’s electoral bid, who now leads his campaign efforts despite Amritpal’s absence?
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Khalsa’s association with Bhindranwale
Khalsa, a leading criminal lawyer from Barnala and a Sikh hardliner, dons many hats — from being an old guard Akali leader, an MP from Punjab’s Sangrur, leader of the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat, to briefly supporting the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and then joining the Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
When Amritpal returned to India in August 2022, Khalsa, once a close associate of Sikh militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, joined hands with his team, as legal aide. When Amritpal was arrested under NSA in April 2023, Khalsa was among the first to visit him in Dibrugarh jail along with Amritpal’s parents.
Since then, Khalsa has been a regular visitor at the jail, briefing the press regularly about his visits. In October last year, when he was denied visitation rights, Amritpal and his associates went on a hunger strike.
“Amritpal is facing at least a dozen cases in Punjab on various accounts, and I am advising him in all those cases. We are not actively involved in courtroom trials currently because none of these cases have actually begun mainly because Amritpal has not been arrested in any case and continues to be in preventive detention under NSA,” Khalsa told ThePrint.
The 73-year-old, who belongs to the Dhanaula area in Barnala, had joined the Akali leader Master Tara Singh in his youth and remained loyal even during the party’s split.
“I continued to remain loyal to Master Tara Singh even when the Akali Dal was divided into two factions — one headed by Master Tara Singh and the other by Sant Fateh Singh,” said Khalsa, who also remained the president of the All India Sikh Student Federation for three years from 1968 to 1970.
Khalsa studied to become a lawyer and went on to support militants in Punjab in the late 1970s and 80s. “I was very close to Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. On the day of Operation Blue Star in June 1984, he told me to leave the Golden Temple and work for the Sikh boys who would need legal support,” he told ThePrint.
“I was told by Sant ji to follow his father Baba Joginder Singh, which I did,” he added.
His political flip-flops
Khalsa contested the 1989 parliamentary elections from Sangrur as a candidate of the United Akali Dal, the party headed by Baba Joginder Singh.
He won and took oath as an MP along with some others elected from his party. “Simranjit Singh Mann had also won but refused to take the oath because of the kirpan issue. I was the de facto leader of our party in Parliament,” said Khalsa. “I was still an MP when the United Akali Dal split and Mann parted ways with us in 1991.”
After a period of political seclusion following Baba Joginder Singh’s death in 1993, Khalsa reentered the political arena in 2012.
In 2012, Akali leader and former Union minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa made Khalsa join the Akali Dal and he became a member of the political affairs committee ahead of the elections. But the bonhomie with the party did not last long.
In 2015, Khalsa was back in the news when he joined the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat — the Sikh wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He was chosen as the leader of the Malwa region by the RSS and it was widely reported that Khalsa intended to dispel the notion about the Sangh among Sikhs.
“Chiranjeev Singh was the president of the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat and he had approached me through some common link. I had laid down three conditions before him,” Khalsa said, listing the three for ThePrint.
Khalsa’s first condition was that the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat should acknowledge that Sikhs are not Hindus, but have a separate identity. Then, they had to acknowledge that Jarnail Singh Bhindrawale and others, who had laid their life for the Sikh cause, were “martyrs”. Lastly, they would work towards giving a special status to the Sikhs under the constitution.
Following these, “I was made in charge of the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat in Malwa, but soon I realised that they did not intend to fulfill their promises. When the incidents of sacrilege took place in Punjab (in 2015), the Rashtriya Sikh Sangat started supporting Prakash Singh Badal, giving them a clean chit, while I always held that it was Shiromani Akali Dal that was responsible for the incident. I left shortly after that,” Khalsa told ThePrint.
The 74-year-old went on to support the AAP in the 2017 elections. “I never formally joined the AAP, as is being spread by my opponents,” he said.
According to him, Sardar Harvinder Singh Phoolka, who knew him closely, wanted him to support the AAP candidate, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer.
“Phoolka said that he would become Punjab’s chief minister and would be calling the shots. Since I have a certain hold in the area, I supported Hayer, but Phoolka never became the CM, instead became the leader of the opposition, a position he left after some time,” said Khalsa.
In January 2019, Khalsa joined the Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali) — a breakaway faction of the Shiromani Akali Dal Badal — formed by old-guard Akali leaders Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Rattan Singh Ajnala and Sewa Singh Sekhwan.
Khalsa was declared the candidate from Sangrur for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, but he did not contest due to an injury. In December 2021, he was again in the news after joining the BJP with Fateh Singh Bajwa, a former Congressman.
Former Congress MLA Fateh Bajwa, Former MLA Akali Dal Gurtej Singh Gudhiyana, Former Member of Parliament United Akali Dal Rajdev Singh Khalsa, and Retired ADC and Advocate in Punjab Haryana High Court Madhumeet joins BJP today in Delhi pic.twitter.com/bJJEVnsSNQ
— ANI (@ANI) December 28, 2021
“I left the BJP almost as soon as I joined because again I was promised that the party would make the three announcements that the RSS promised me. But, I was let down again. So I left,” he said.
In June 2022, ahead of the Sangrur parliamentary by-election, Khalsa supported his bete noire, Simranjeet Singh Mann. The two had joined hands after 32 years. Mann won the elections after Bhagwant Mann vacated the seat to become Punjab’s chief minister.
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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