Ramoowalia inducted in UP Cabinet

Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 31

Senior Akali leader Balwant Singh Ramoowalia was today inducted in Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's Cabinet following his resignation from the Shiromani Akali Dal.

Ramoowalia had on October 29 handed over his resignation to  Education Minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema personally. He was senior vice-president and Core Committee member in the SAD.

On October 25, he had issued a statement denying any move to resign from the SAD. He said “these are baseless rumours spread by some anti-social elements. It is part of a deep-rooted conspiracy to weaken the SAD.”

Speaking to The Tribune today, Ramoowalia said he had an old association with Samajwadi Party chairman Mulayam Singh Yadav, who had backed him in 1996 to help him remain minister in the Union Cabinet.

Ramoowalia — one of the 12 new ministers inducted in the Uttar Pradesh government — said he would contest the election from a constituency suggested by the SP chief.

Ramoowalia was a Minister for Social Welfare in the Gujral and Gowda governments from 1996 to 1998. At that time, he was a member of the Rajya Sabha from UP.

He started his political career as a Left activist and remained general secretary of the Students Federation of India (SFI) in 1962-63, a youth organisation with a Left leaning.

Later, he joined the All-India Sikh Students Federation, a wing of the Akali Dal, and was its president in the late 1970s. He was considered a close associate of the late Sant Harchand Singh Longowal.

He was elected to the Lok Sabha twice, in 1977 and 1984. Following differences with the SAD leadership, he quit the party in the 1990s and formed his own Lok Bhalai Party (LBP).

However, his party failed to make any dent at the political level, though it did manage to get a sizeable number of votes in the Assembly elections.

Ramoowalia merged his party with the SAD in 2011, and ever since he had been playing an active role in the party and was put in charge of party affairs in Delhi. Recently, he was also asked to look after the party affairs in UP.

Ramoowalia, who has remained Rajya Sabha Member from UP for six years, came close to the ruling Yadav clan of UP through the CPI-M leader late Harkishan Singh Surjeet. Because of their common ideological roots, Mulayam Singh Yadav and Surjeet were close associates.

Eight ministers were sacked from the UP Government on Thursday. The reshuffle is being seen as part of the SP preparations for the Assembly elections due in 2017.

SAD expels Ramoowalia

The Shiromani Akali Dal expelled Ramoowalia from the party. The leader, however, claimed he had already resigned from the party.

"A resignation letter dated October 29 was sent to the SAD president (Sukhbir Singh Badal) via the Education Minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema for necessary action," he said.

Ramoowalia displayed height of political opportunism: SAD

The SAD hit out at Ramoowalia for displaying the “height of political opportunism” by “betraying” the party.

Top Akali leaders said the action of Ramoowalia was reminiscent of the days of “Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram” politics.

Senior SAD leaders, including Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Balwinder Singh Bhundur, Maheshinder Singh Grewal, Prem Singh Chandumajra and Daljit Singh Cheema, said what was most condemnable was that Ramoowalia had not betrayed the SAD due to any ideological reasons “but because he had been rejected by the people of Punjab”.

In a joint statement, the leaders said Ramoowalia was “always in the habit of sticking to power and back stabbing”.

They said it was the SAD that had granted Ramoowalia political recognition by giving him the parliamentary ticket from Faridkot several years back.

The leaders claimed that Ramoowalia when out in the cold formed his own party — Lok Bhalai Party (LBP) — which was more in news for "exploiting NRIs and innocent Punjabis”.

The LBP failed to make any impression in two successive elections following which Ramoowalia made a comeback to the SAD (in 2011), they said.

Ramoowalia lost during the 2012 Assembly elections from Punjab when he contested from Mohali as a SAD candidate.

Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Balwinder Bhundur said after the people of Mohali rejected him, there was a clamour from the SAD’s rank and file to divest him from the responsibility of leading the party from the constituency in the next Assembly elections (due in 2017).

They claimed Ramoowalia got “frustrated” due to these developments.

“We fail to understand what lollipop the Samajwadi Party has given to such a failed leader”, the SAD leaders sneered.

Meanwhile, the SAD removed Ramoowalia's daughter Amanjot Kaur Ramoowalia as Chairperson of the Mohali District Planning Commission.