Son of Indira Gandhi's assassin leads polls in India's Faridkot

Independent candidate Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, the son of Beant Singh, one of former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi's assassins, is leading the polls at Faridkot in India's Punjab.

After nine rounds of counting in the border constituency, Sarabjeet polled 49,439 votes while his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) competitor Karamjit Singh Anmol trails behind with 29,927 votes, Hindustan Times reported.

Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) Rajwinder Singh Dharamkot received 20,824 votes and Amarjit Kaur Sahoke of the Congress got 20,441 votes while Hans Raj Hans of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) trailed with 11,182 votes.

Khalsa is the son of Beant Singh, one of Indira Gandhi's bodyguards who assassinated her.

During the campaign, Sarabjeet's Sikh-focused pitch struck a chord in the rural-dominated border constituency and gained momentum with roadshows and poll meetings in the last leg.

He would rake up Sikh sentiments by reminding the audience how his father had assassinated Indira Gandhi to avenge the attack on Golden Temple in 1984.

Sikh leaders and the relatives of the 2015 post-sacrilege police firing victims extended their support to him and campaigned for him.

Previously, his mother Bimal Kaur Khalsa had won the Lok Sabha elections from Ropar and his grandfather Sucha Singh had won the election from Bathinda parliamentary constituency in 1989 as candidate of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar). 

He has significant support in five of the nine assembly segments in the Faridkot parliamentary constituency: Dharamkot, Baghapurana, Gidderbaha, Jaitu and Faridkot.