Sukhbir Singh Badal calls Waris Punjab De (heirs of Punjab) ‘virus Punjab de’. The intensity of his attacks, coming months before the Assembly election, is provoked by the new party’s claims to be the true representative of the state’s interests and the Panth.

Waris leaders say the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is a sell-out — having aligned with the BJP to ensure a cabinet berth in New Delhi for itself. They also point to the Panjab University Campus Students Council polls in which the Students’ Organisation of India (SAD’s student wing) supported RSS-affiliated ABVP. Waris Punjab De is equally unsparing of the BJP, deriding its leaders for donning turbans while touring the state.

For a party whose president Amritpal Singh has not stepped outside a jail cell in Dibrugarh, that’s a lot of noise. On 29 July, Waris workers gheraoed chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s residence in Chandigarh, demanding the release of Amritpal and other ‘bandi Singhs’ (Sikhs who have completed their sentences but continue to languish in jail). By evening, scenes of water cannons and breaking barricades were travelling faster on Facebook and WhatsApp than any press release could.

The most consequential coup of the two-year-old party was a recent defection. Manpreet Ayali — the rebel Akali MLA from Dakha and one of the few SAD legislators to have actually won an election in 2022 — formally joined the outfit in June under the watchful eye of Amritpal’s father Tarsem Singh. Ayali did not need coaxing: his own panchayat and zila parishad candidates had already campaigned on Amritpal’s photograph.

Also Read: Punjab: The arithmetic of appeasement

Waris has been first off the block with its list of candidates. Pappalpreet Singh, Amritpal’s closest lieutenant, has been fielded from Majitha straight into Akali strongman Bikram Majithia’s backyard — more symbolic dare than serious electoral calculation. Mandeep Singh Sidhu, founder ‘martyr’ Deep Sidhu’s brother, gets Talwandi Sabo, cashing in on a surname that still galvanises........

© National Herald