RATTAN’S RUMBLE: Federal Liberal Party under attack by South Asians once again after Edmonton riding controversy

Varinder Bhullar (right) with Justin Trudeau in happier times. Facebook photo
Varinder Bhullar (right) with Justin Trudeau in happier times.
Facebook photo

IT seems that federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s image continues to take a battering especially among South Asians who are increasingly viewing him as an incompetent and ignorant political leader as his party bosses keep making one blunder after another in the nomination process.

In B.C. itself they screwed up big-time in the Vancouver South riding where now it will take a miracle for their parachuted candidate retired Lieutenant-Colonel Harjit Singh Sajjan, Trudeau’s blue-eyed boy, to defeat incumbent Conservative MP Wai Young after the mean and despicable manner in which well-respected businessman Barj Dhahan was forced out by Trudeau’s political manipulators.

Those same political fixers tried their best to sabotage former MP Sukh Dhaliwal in the Surrey-Newton riding but Dhaliwal ended up thrashing their upstart candidate Randeep Sarai, totally humiliating them as most South Asians rallied to support Dhaliwal, who is well liked.

Now that same cheap politics it seems has claimed another victim: this time in Edmonton where Varinder Bhullar, a manufacturing specialist at an Edmonton pharmaceutical company, has been forced out of the running in favour of Edmonton City Councillor Amarjeet Sohi, apparently because a survey by the party showed that he was more popular than Bhullar. Bhullar is no upstart, having served as the secretary and vice-president of the Liberal constituency of Edmonton-Mill Woods for a decade.

Amarjeet Sohi Official photo
Amarjeet Sohi
Official photo

Sohi is the same guy who earned a lot of popularity with minorities and others when back in November 2013 he ordered Edmonton Transit to pull its bigoted bus ads that were apparently paid for by an American racist group that claimed to offer help to Muslim females threatened with honour killings. He noted that honour killing and domestic violence are present in all communities and targeting just one community was not helpful but was discriminatory.

Sohi has been councillor since 2007. He worked with Edmonton Transit from 1998 to 2007. Before that, he worked for the City of Edmonton as an independent contractor.

Bhullar told the Globe and Mail that the party had given him the go-ahead for seeking the nomination 10 months ago, but now he had been sent an email telling him that he had been disqualified because some of the 1,200 memberships he had brought in were fraudulent. He said he was told only nine memberships were found to be fraudulent.

But just like Dhahan in the case of Vancouver South, Bhullar says he was forced out because the party bosses wanted their own favourite guy to run.

The fact that he was not allowed to appeal the decision only goes to show the dictatorial ways of Trudeau and his political fixers. They appear to be so desperate to micromanage things in every riding in a desperate attempt to defeat the Conservatives.

Bhullar told the Globe and Mail that he had been approached by a Liberal senator and provincial MLA back in December 2013 to run in the riding. He got the party’s approval to go ahead after an exhaustive background check. But in June he was told by a senior Liberal official that their surveys showed Sohi would be a better candidate.

Bhullar said he was asked to resign and offered the Edmonton-Wetaskiwin riding instead and told that he would be appointed the Liberal vice-president for Alberta, but he declined the offer. The Liberal Party then offered him a political position within party, but he told them that he was “not for sale.”

A spokesman for the Liberals could not confirm his allegations to the Globe and Mail.

Sohi had nothing to say about the controversy to the newspaper. He said the party had approached him to run.

So after all this, how many South Asians – or others – can view the Liberals favourably?

2 COMMENTS

  1. This shows infighting among South Asian groups. I fail to see how it entails that something is problematic with Justin Trudeau or the federal Liberal Party.

    • EDITOR’S COMMENT: Justin Trudeau IS the PROBLEM! Isn’t that obvious? Instead of allowing a democratic process, he is instructing or allowing his advisers to bully candidates to withdraw to parachute in his / their favourites. Of course, as usual, they use one group to fight against the other and pretend they have nothing to do with it. You call that “leadership”?

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