Waris Punjab De head Amritpal Singh to contest as Independent candidate from Khadoor Sahib seat?

Waris Punjab De Head Amritpal Singh, currently lodged in Dibrugarh jail in Assam under the National Security Act, will contest parliamentary elections from Punjab’s Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha seat. Here's what we know so far.

Amritpal Singh, a separatist who has been imprisoned in Assam under the National Security Act, would run as an independent in the Lok Sabha elections from Punjab's Khadoor Sahib constituency, his attorney claimed. However, his father, Tarsem Singh, said he would comment on the matter only after meeting his son on Thursday while asserting that Amritpal Singh had earlier not shown any interest in joining politics.

Rajdev Singh Khalsa, Amritpal Singh's attorney, stated that he spoke with the separatist on Wednesday while he was being held in custody in Dibrugarh and asked him to run for office.

"Today, I met with Amritpal Singh, bhai sahab, in the central jail in Dibrugarh. During our conversation, I asked bhai sahab to run for parliament again, this time from Khadoor Sahib, on behalf of the people of Khalsa Panth.Bhai sahab accepted my request in the Panthic interests... He will fight as an Independent candidate," claimed Khalsa.

Amritpal Singh, chief of the 'Waris Punjab De' outfit, was arrested in April last year and the stringent NSA was invoked against him. He along with nine of his associates is currently lodged in Dibrugarh jail.

Amritpal Singh, who styled himself after dead Khalistani terrorist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was arrested in Moga's Rode village on April 23 last year following a more than one-month-long manhunt. In March of last year, he had eluded the police in the Jalandhar area by using several cars and posing as someone else.

The Punjab Police had launched the crackdown after the February 23 Ajnala incident last year in which Amritpal Singh and his supporters, some of them brandishing swords and guns, broke through barricades and barged into the police station on the outskirts of Amritsar city. They also clashed with police for the release of Lovepreet Singh Toofan, one of his aides.