Slogans for the Punjabi Suba had been heard as far back as February 1947, and the demand for a Punjabi Suba as a policy position was first presented in April 1948 by Master Tara Singh of the Shiromani Akali Dal, a Sikh political party active mainly in Punjab. The Sikh population, after the partition of Punjab, had become a majority population in a contiguous, strategic land area for the first time in its history, with a new socio-political position, This enabled the Akali Dal to focus on expressing unencumbered Sikh political needs, free from the politics of the former Muslim majority that had needed to be accommodated on its political platform prior to it, and provided the opportunity for Sikhs themselves to express a degree of autonomy from the sway of the Congress party and the central government, through the Akali Dal.