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Journalism of Courage
JALANDHAR, Oct 16: The differences within the All India Sikh Students Federation today came out into the open with the rival faction leaders expelling each other from the party thus splitting the militant-turned moderate forum. Manjit Singh Bhoma, after edging out bitter rival Avtar Singh Boparai from the presidentship by appointing him the patron, today delivered the final blow by throwing him out of the party and declaring Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal as the patron.
“Boparai had completely failed to galvanise the party ranks and was neither able to get a respectable representation in the ruling Akali Dal nor in the SAD-BJP government,”he told mediapersons here.
Boparai’s expulsion comes a day after he claimed to be the original leader of the AISSF and expelled Bhome from the party.
The expulsions and counter-expulsions follow a bitter fight for supremacy within the once predominant student body, which has split umpteen times in the recent years.
Bhoma claimed to have got the nod for expelling Boparai and installing Badal as patron from the Chief Minister himself and met State Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh in this regard last evening. Bhoma said Boparai had exceeded the age limit to be the president of the youth body and was merely holding on to the party card in order to derive political benefits.
Political observers here said the ongoing fight within the AISSF factions had its origins in the Akali Dal’s internal politics, where the senior leaders were giving patronage to one or the other factions in order to consolidate their hold on various frontal organisations of the party.
Efforts to rejuvenate the long dormant Bhoma-led AISSF come at a time when the Harminder Singh Gill-led rival AISSF is making deep inroads into the Akali politics, thanks to some nurturing from the top Akali Dal leaders, observers said.
