So-called moderate Sikhs are angry with some temple leaders who they allege are linked to Ujjal Dosanjh, the Vancouver South MP who deserted the NDP to join the federal Liberals when he thought that then prime minister Paul Martin would win the election and he would become a minister.
This group of “comrades” (leftists) has been desperately trying to unseat long-time president of Surrey’s Guru Nanak Sikh Temple, Balwant Singh Gill, who is also the spokesperson for the 36-temple North America Gurdwara Committee.
The Guru Nanak Sikh temple, located in Surrey where more than 100,000 Indo-Canadians reside, is now considered the most prestigious gurdwara and the “comrade” faction, that Gill says is linked to Dosanjh, wants him out.
But Gill is no pushover. He has enjoyed the solid support of the majority of Sikhs in Surrey as election after election has clearly shown. And he told The VOICE on Thursday that he will run again in the November 23 gurdwara election (the court has set the date) if any “comrade” representative runs for the presidency.
He said: “I don’t want the comrades to take over the gurdwara.”
The Punjabi media recently reported that the president of Vancouver’s Khalsa Diwan Society-run Ross Street Sikh Temple, Kashmir Dhaliwal, has been appointed president of the North America Gurdwara Committee.
But Gill mocked this news, telling The VOICE: “How can Kashmir remove me? He’s made himself the spokesperson. (But) I am still the spokesperson. First of all, he can’t call a meeting because he’s not authorized to. … It’s just politics, nothing else.”
The “comrades” used Gill’s presence at the June candlelight vigil for victims of human rights abuses in India to malign him, accusing him of supporting “terrorists.”
But Gill shot back, pointing out that the candlelight vigil was “a human rights issue” and that was his only purpose to attend the rally. He said it had “nothing to do with Khalistanis.”
He said he and his supporters went to listen Harvinder Singh Phoolka, the famous human rights lawyer from India, and Harinder Singh from Texas, who’s the director of the Sikh Research Institute and a renowned Sikh scholar.
Gill said: “Everybody knows what happened in Delhi (where thousands of innocent men, women and children were massacred by Hindu mobs led by Congress Party politicians in 1984 following the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi). That’s my concern also.”
Readers of The VOICE will recollect that Vancouver Sun reporter Kim Bolan goes out of her way to quote Ujjal Dosanjh and Kashmir Dhaliwal, besides Dave Hayer. The politics being played here should be quite obvious to any sensible person in the community.
It is also quite obvious that Indian intelligence agents (India’s CIA is the Research and Analysis Wing or RAW) are active in the community and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) had warned earlier this year that it was keeping an eye on foreign government agents who were playing politics in ethnic communities in Canada. So apparently, some of these people are taking directions from these agents directly or indirectly.
Many of these figures have visited India at the expense (partly or fully) of the Indian government and have even received honours from the Indian government. CSIS and RCMP should monitor such characters.
These facts have been reported many times in the VOICE.
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