Anti Khalistan leader expelled by Shivsena

Patiala, Apr 30: The Shiv Sena’s Punjab unit on Friday expelled a leader who gave a call for an anti-Khalistan march in Patiala, hours after police opened fire to disperse Sena activists and members of the Nihang Sikh community as tension gripped the city.

 

 

 

Yograj Sharma, state chief of the Sena, said in a press release that Harish Singla, who claims to be the working president of the Shiv Sena (Bal Thackerey), had been expelled for “anti-party activities” after orders from party supremo Uddhav Thackeray, youth wing chief Aditya Thackeray and national secretary Anil Desai.

 

 

 

For his part, Singla said Sharma had “no right” to expel him. “As chief of the Sena in Punjab, he can only induct new members but cannot expel a senior leader like me,” he said. Singla said that in Punjab, the party was known as the Shiv Sena (Bal Thackeray) to differentiate it from over a dozen other factions. Sharma, however, said Singla was the party’s state vice-president and not working president. “We had clarified to the Patiala police around 10 days ago that the Shiv Sena had nothing to do with the call given by Harish Singla and that it was Singla’s personal programme and not a party programme,” he added. Singla said the anti-Khalistan protest march was announced around 15 days ago after Gurpatwant Singh Pannun of the banned outfit Sikhs for Justice gave a call to observe “Khalistan sthapna diwas (Khalistan foundation day) at district police offices in Haryana.”

 

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“If they can raise pro-Khalistani slogans at various events, why can’t we raise anti-Khalistani slogans? Thousands of Hindus were killed during the militancy in Punjab,” said Singla, adding that he had convened a meeting to chalk out the next course of action. As per Shiv Sena press secretary Jugal Kishore Loomba, the Sena factions in the state are the Shiv Sena (Kesri), Shiv Sena (Bhagwa), Shiv Sena (Taksali), Shiv Sena Punjab, Rashtravadi Shiv Sena, Shiv Sena (Amritsar), Shiv Sena (Inquilab), Shiv Sena (Hind) and the Shiv Sena (Hindustan).