SAD shows Karnail Singh Panjoli the door for anti-party activities

Tribune News Service

Jupinderjit Singh

Chandigarh, February 14

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today expelled senior leader and SGPC member Karnail Singh Panjoli from the party’s primary membership for six years for anti-party activities making him the fourth leader to pay price for revolting against the Badals.

A loyalist of late Gurcharan Singh Tohra, 64-year-old Panjoli said after his expulsion there was restlessness and aimlessness among party leaders while the leadership was holding to chairs and killing democracy by taking such actions.

Earlier, senior women and former SGPC president Jagir Kaur was expelled from the party. Another senior leader and SAD core-committee member Jagmeet Singh Brar was also expelled from the party. Former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Bonny Ajnala, who belongs to a Taksali Akali family, also resigned from the party few days ago.

While launching a vitriolic attack, Panjoli said he was happy to be disassociated from an Akali Dal, which had become a private limited company of the Badal family. “I am relieved. I have served the party since the age of seventeen when I was jailed for participating in a SAD dharna at Karnal. I have faced 18 criminal cases and three separate cases under the National Security Act, 1980, for participating in various movements as a loyal soldier of the Akali Dal. There is no democracy in the party. They expelled me without even giving me a notice to explain my position. This is dictatorship.”

Panjoli said he felt chained to the Akali Dal, which was no longer a protector of the ‘panth’. “What was my fault? Since the SAD lost 2017 Assembly elections, I have been demanding that the party leadership should seek forgiveness from the Sikh ‘panth’ for the sacrilege cases, police firing at Behbal Kalan and Kotkapura and apology to Dera Sacha Sauda chief. Though all this happened during the Akali regime, yet the leadership continued. I told them to give chance to young leaders,” Panjoli said.

Sikander Singh Maluka, head, SAD disciplinary panel, ordered Panjoli’s expulsion over series of anti-party statements. The recent statement was given last week in which Panjoli used a cuss word for the SAD leadership while giving reference of a dharna by Qaumi Sikh Morcha over the release of the Sikh prisoners.

Defending the action against Panjoli, Dr Daljeet Singh Cheema, SAD spokesperson, said he was giving critical statements about the party publicly instead of raising issues at the party forums. “We respect difference of opinion but there are party forums for such matters,” said Cheema.

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