Punjab's Bandi Singhs: A Cause Every Party Uses, Nobody Owns

Updated: Aug 22, 2026 15:11 pm IST Published On Aug 22, 2026 15:05 pm IST Last Updated On Aug 22, 2026 15:11 pm IST

Published On Aug 22, 2026 15:05 pm IST

Last Updated On Aug 22, 2026 15:11 pm IST

Punjab saw another bandh this week. Roads blocked, slogans raised, the same old demand repeated once again: Release the Sikh prisoners, or Bandi Singhs. Markets stayed shut, buses stayed off the road, but the day passed off peacefully, with no untoward incident reported anywhere in the state. This has been going on for more than a decade now. Every few months, some party or the other picks up this issue, makes a big statement, holds a rally, writes a letter to Delhi. Then things go quiet again, until the next round. The truth is simple, even if nobody wants to say it out loud - every major party in Punjab has used this issue. Not one of them has actually closed the file when it had the power to do so.

When this campaign started in 2013, the list of Sikh prisoners being demanded free ran to 119 names. More than a decade of releases, deaths and legal action later, that number has come down to around 21. The list has shrunk mostly on its own, case by case, not because any single government sat down and resolved it.

The Akali Dal: A Decade in Power, No Result

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ruled Punjab for 10 years, from 2007 to 2017, and was allied with the BJP at the Centre for most of that time. If any party had the means to push this through, it was the SAD. Though Punjab's former chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal wrote to several governments in 2014 seeking the release of 13 prisoners, formed a high-level committee in 2015, and Punjab also moved the Supreme Court. Waryam Singh's release was subsequently cleared. The issue only returned to SAD's speeches after it lost badly in the 2022 election. When the SAD had the chair, the file gathered dust. When it lost the chair, the file reopened as a slogan.

The BJP: A Notification,........

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