On the heels of the for­ma­tion of Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Tak­sali) of vet­eran Akali leader and MP Ran­jit Singh Brahm­pura, the Pun­jab Ekta Party has been formed by Pun­jab leg­is­la­tor Sukh­pal Singh Khaira af­ter quit­ting AAP.

After play­ing hide and seek for the past few months, Sukh­pal Singh Khaira –the son of Akali vet­eran Prof. Sukhjin­der Singh, who too could not fit in to the feu­dal pol­i­tics of the Akali party, along with six of his like-minded Aam Aadmi Party col­leagues an­nounced the for­ma­tion of the new Pun­jab Ekta Party, with the avowed aim of “get­ting due jus­tice for all Pun­jabis who have sac­ri­ficed a lot for the coun­try but whose de­mands have not been met and griev­ances have not been ad­dressed.”

Speak­ing to his sup­port­ers, Sukh­pal Singh Khaira an­nounced his new par­ty’s mis­sion to erad­i­cate cor­rup­tion from Pun­jab and to launch a full scale at­tack on the min­ing and trans­port mafia in the state. Trac­ing the long his­tory of griev­ances of the peo­ple of Pun­jab since the par­ti­tion of the coun­try, he said that “his party stood for a truly fed­eral struc­ture’” and ad­vo­cated more pow­ers to the states.

He also said that, “the Pun­jab Ekta Party would ex­plore all av­enues for a so­lu­tion to the farm cri­sis in Pun­jab and end sui­cides of farm­ers.”

Six leg­is­la­tors of the Aam Aadmi Party –Kan­war Sandhu, Nazar Singh Man­shahia, Mas­ter Baldev Singh, Pir­mal Singh, Jagdev Singh Ka­mulu and Jag­tar Singh Jagga Is­sowal were pre­sent at the launch of the new party, though Sukh­pal Singh Khaira was the only speaker at the meet.

As Sukh­pal Singh Khaira has al­most de­cided to con­test the forth­com­ing par­lia­men­tary elec­tions, he is likely to face the fall­out of his res­ig­na­tion from the AAP un­der anti-de­fec­tion laws. Af­ter his elec­tion from the Bho­lath con­stituency, Khaira rose to be­come the leader of the op­po­si­tion, how­ever his out­spo­ken­ness was not liked by his col­leagues like Bhag­want Mann and the Delhi lead­er­ship of AAP.

Six sit­ting AAP leg­is­la­tors — Kan­war Sandhu, Nazar Singh Man­shahia, Mas­ter Baldev Singh, Pir­mal Singh, Jagdev Ka­malu and Jagga Is­sowal — were seen at the launch of the new party. Though they are likely to sup­port him, but fear­ing the anti-de­fec­tion laws, they may not re­sign from the party. At least, not now. Of the 20 AAP leg­is­la­tors elected, Khaira is the sec­ond af­ter Phoolka to re­sign from the party.

It is rain­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties and fronts in the Pun­jab. With the gen­eral elec­tions to the lower house of the In­dian Par­lia­ment just a few months away, new per­mu­ta­tions and com­bi­na­tions are in the off­ing to the peo­ple of Pun­jab. The Akali ranks are al­ready di­vided with the for­ma­tion of Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal (Tak­sali) and the Pan­thic par­ties are still wait­ing in the wings. Ad­vo­cate ac­tivist Harvin­der Singh Phoolka is tilt­ing to­wards so­cio-re­li­gious pol­i­tics, though what he will even­tu­ally do at the nth hour can­not be eas­ily guessed. Who will catch the imag­i­na­tion of the peo­ple of Pun­jab?