Fissures in Moga Cong unit over district chief

Kulwinder Sandhu

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Tribune News Service

Moga, February 4

The nomination of former Akali MLA Maheshinder Singh Nihalsinghwala as the president of the Moga District Congress Committee (DCC) has created fissures within the local party unit.

MLA from Baghapurana Darshan Singh Brar and Moga MLA Harjot Kamal did not participate in the installation ceremony of Maheshinder Singh organised by the DCC in Moga last week. However, Kaka Sukhjit Singh Lohgarh, Congress MLA from Dharamkot constituency, attended the function.

Darshan Brar and his son Kamaljit Singh Brar, a youth Congress leader, have openly opposed the nomination of Maheshinder Singh. Harjot Kamal’s absence, too, has raised many eyebrows.

Maheshinder Singh joined the Congress before the 2017 Assembly elections. He was the sitting MLA of SAD at that time. He was an aspirant for the Congress ticket from Moga but the party high command didn’t want to rely on the “turncoat” leader.

His father Gurcharan Singh Nihalsinghwala was a Congress stalwart in the Malwa belt after the Independence. Maheshinder also started his career in the Congress. He unsuccessfully fought the Assembly elections twice on Congress ticket. Later, he joined the Shiromani Akali Dal and won the Assembly elections in 2012 from Baghapurana Assembly.

Recently, Maheshinder faced a controversy over his alleged relations with gangsters of the area.

On the other hand, Dr Harjot Kamal’s grievance is that Maheshinder did not actively campaign for him in the Assembly elections.

Another common view of these two MLAs is that Maheshinder Singh remained in “oblivion” for about two years and did not actively participate in party works. All of a sudden, he got the district president’s post even as most of the local party leaders were against him.