7 independents win Lok Sabha polls; who are they?
Seven independent candidates have emerged victorious in the 18th Lok Sabha elections. They include two men who contested from behind bars: Khalistan separatist Amritpal Singh, who won from Khadoor Sahib in Punjab, and Sheikh Abdul Rashid, also known as Engineer Rashid, who won in Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir. Overall, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) secured 292 seats, and the Congress-led Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) bloc bagged 234 seats.
Independent winners: A closer look
The other five independent victors are Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, Patel Umeshbhai Babubhai, Mohamad Haneefa, Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav, and Vishal Patil. Khalsa emerged victorious from Faridkot in Punjab with a margin of 70,053 votes, while Babubhai secured the Daman and Diu seat by defeating the sitting BJP MP with a margin of 6,225 votes.
Notable election victories
In the Union territory of Ladakh, Haneefa won the lone Lok Sabha seat by a margin of 27,862 votes, and Ranjan secured victory in Purnia, Bihar, with a margin of 23,847 votes. Patil triumphed over the BJP's Sanjay Patil in Sangli, Maharashtra, by a margin of 100,053 votes. Lastly, Engineer defeated Omar Abdullah of the Jammu & Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) in Baramulla, by an impressive margin of 2,04,142 votes, while Singh defeated Congress's Kulbir Singh Zira by 1,97,120 votes.
Backgrounds of the independent winners
Singh, who leads the pro-Khalistan outfit Waris Punjab De, is currently in Assam's Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act (NSA). He was arrested in April 2023 after a 36-day manhunt. His jailed counterpart, Engineer, has been in Tihar Jail since August 2019 on terror funding charges after being first arrested in 2004 for supporting militants.
Khalsa is the son of Beant Singh
Khalsa is the son of Beant Singh, one of the assassins of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, while Babubhai is a social worker. Meanwhile, Haneefa is the fourth independent to win Ladakh since it came into existence in 1967. Ranjan contested independently after his Jan Aadhikar Party (JAP) merged with the Congress. Similarly, Patil rebelled against the Congress after the party's ally, Shiv Sena (UBT), fielded its own candidate. He is the grandson of former Maharashtra chief minister Vasantrao Patil.
