Election in this part of the country is a five-cornered contest between forgetting, forgiving, fright, factionalism and failure.

“No one wants to remember. Our fault is that we can’t forget,” said vehicle upholstery tailor Sajjan Singh who is in his 40s now.

While most businesses here have not regained their pre-GST profit margins, Sajjan has grown from being a tailor’s assistant to setting up his own shop in Khadoor Sahib constituency’s Makhu town.

He says that the hoarding of jailed Sikh extremist Amritpal Singh installed outside his shop feels like the sword of Damocles.

“The new generation does not know the dark days of the 80s and 90s. My cousin, a follower of (separatist cleric) Gurbachan Singh Manochahal, was killed by police. I won’t vote for a candidate who can spread terrorism again. It’s the zamindars who are backing him, not us lower castes,” said Sajjan, whose childhood was spent mostly in fear during the peak of insurgency in Punjab.

Sajjan shares the fear with many from the backward classes and upper caste Hindus after Sikh identity politics witnessed a rebound through the likes of Amritpal Singh and MP Simranjit Singh Mann.

Amritpal, the leader of the separatist group Waris Punjab De (Heirs of Punjab), has been held under the National Security Act (NSA) in an Assam jail for more than a year now after he stormed a police station near Amritsar to protest an FIR against him for abduction.

He is contesting in absentia from Khadoor Sahib and has found support from the conservative Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) led by Mann, who is standing for re-election from Sangrur.

Mann, an ex-IPS officer, was jailed after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards with Khalistani leanings. He was elected to Parliament in absentia from Tarn Taran in 1989. The seat was named Khadoor Sahib after delimitation in 2008.

“I feel that only the BJP can end this problem (separatism) but right now we don’t know who is the strongest candidate to take on Amritpal,” said Sajjan, expressing his helplessness in the five-cornered fight also including the Congress, AAP and the SAD.

The BJP has fielded former Akali MLA Manjit Singh Manna, a Dalit, from an unreserved seat. The Jat-Sikh landlords of Khadoor Sahib seat’s Wada Sabrah village say they were Akali voters earlier but are now divided between Amritpal and AAP. The Congress holds the seat.

“He didn’t do anything wrong. He has not killed anyone. He worked against drugs, rampant here. Even if he is all alone in Parliament, he will speak the truth like a Khalsa (religious Sikh) and all Khalsas will support him,” said Nashatar Singh, a Jat landlord.

“At the Centre, we want a government which promotes justice for farmers and brotherhood. But from Punjab, we must send MPs who will speak for us,” he added.

Amritsar-based expert on the Khalistani movement, Jagrup Singh Sekhon, pointed out that only 0.1 per cent respondents in the 2022 Assembly post-poll CSDS-Lokniti survey said that the Bargari sacrilege of the Guru Granth Sahib was the most important issue for them. Others in the survey did not consider it much of an issue.

Interestingly, participants in elections affirm their faith in the Constitution and those contesting from here, too, have taken the oath, in a way shunning separatism and taking the democratic path to Parliament.

“A factionalism tendency exists in Punjab but its revival is unlikely as every family here has suffered at the hands of either state or non-state actors during the insurgency. However, it is clear that the BJP has found a new window to rural Punjab through Dalits, who share an uneasy relationship with the Jat-Sikh elites who dominate in politics and even in the farmers’ movement,” he said.

The Jat landlords of Phaguwala village in Sangrur admit they are divided between the Congress and the AAP. “Our MP is neither good nor bad. I have a problem with the freebies of AAP but they have benefitted large sections of society. But at the Centre, I think Congress alone understands the problems of landlords and farming. Under Modi, brotherhood has vanished in India. The BJP has been a failure,” said Ranteer Singh, also a Jat landlord.

Most Jat landlords this reporter spoke to were dismissive of the BJP’s chances.

Anil Mitter, a Barnala-based publisher and bookseller, told The Telegraph: “After Amritpal’s arrest, there is a higher demand for Sikh religious books than other texts. Our Left worldview books aren’t selling much. I don’t know if this can translate to votes.”

In Khadoor Sahib’s Bhikhiwind, the hotbed of erstwhile insurgency, Attar Chand summarised the current discourse among his Hindu trader community: “The BJP will increase its votes but who will win? What happens after elections? How far will we go back in time? How can people forget all the bloodshed?”

Khadoor Sahib votes on June 1