Decorated Sikh Army Man Sajjan Most Likely To Be Acclaimed In South Vancouver Liberal Nomination

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Challenger Barj Dhahan Tells LINK He Withdrew From Race But Most Likely Told To Go By Party Brass!

Lt. Col. Harjit Singh Sajjan with party leader Justin Trudeau

Decorated Lt.-Col. Harjit Singh Sajjan will be a shoe-in for the Vancouver-South federal Liberal  nomination after challenger Barj Dhahan withdraws. Dhahan confirmed to the LINK Thursday that he has officially withdrawn from the nomination fight scheduled to take place next week where Sajjan, who was the choice of party leader Justin Trudeau, will most likely be acclaimed. Sajjan has the backing of many high powered individuals in Vancouver`s mainstream business community. It remains to be seen if a certain moderate Sikh faction will be actively campaigning against Sajjan if he gets the nomination to run in the next election, which is expected to be called earlier by PM Stephen Harper than the originally expected date of Oct-Nov. 2015.

By R. Paul Dhillon

OTTAWA — Decorated Lt.-Col. Harjit Singh Sajjan will be a shoe-in for the Vancouver-South federal Liberal  nomination after challenger Barj Dhahan withdraws.

Dhahan confirmed to the LINK Thursday that he has officially withdrawn from the nomination fight scheduled to take place next week where Sajjan, who was the choice of party leader Justin Trudeau, will most likely be acclaimed.

Sources told the LINK Sajjan is expected to be introduced as a candidate for the Vancouver South federal Liberal riding by leader Trudeau next week. However, Trudeau`s attendance at the nomination meeting isn`t confirmed.

Sajjan, who recently stepped down as commander of the reserve B.C. Regiment (Duke of Connaught’s Own), is the son of the former member of the World Sikh Organization (WSO) Kundan Singh Sajjan, who has also delved in Vancouver Sikh temple politics.

Sajjan was expected to face competition from businessman Dhahan for the nomination until his sudden withdrawal this week. Dhahan had signed up many more members than Sajjan and if a nomination had taken place, he may have won. But the party brass didn`t want to take any chance of getting embarrassed and having Sajjan lose.

The Liberals seemed to have pulled out the Conservative party`s recent playbook where they ousted 100-plus membership holders former MP Gurmant Grewal and hall owner Paul Brar, and most likely told Dhahan to seek the nomination elsewhere and leave the riding for the decorated ex-VPD cop and solider Sajjan.

The Sikh community in particular had been rooting for anyone but Ujjal Dosanjh, who wasn’t expected to come back after losing to the current Vancouver South Conservative MP Wai Young in the last election.

Sajjan, an Afghanistan war hero who is the first Sikh to command a Canadian Army regiment and who was portrayed as a role model in Ottawa’s latest Welcome to Canada booklet for immigrants, has the backing of prominent federal Liberal power broker Prem Vinning, who must be celebrating another win after he and his Indo-Canadian team took Surrey First to victory in the heated civic elections in BC`s second largest city..

Sajjan is also a former Vancouver police officer, decorated after serving once in Bosnia and three times in Afghanistan. But despite O’Neil’s assertion that the military man is in a tough nomination fight against Dhahan – the assertion couldn’t be so farfetched.

In fact, Sajjan was always expected to be a shoe-in if an actual nomination fight had taken place.

“If Lt.-Col. Sajjan wants to be a federal Liberal candidate in the next election and be part of Justin Trudeau’s team, which I know he wants, then he will be our party’s candidate,” a federal Liberal insider had told the LINK when we first reported of Sajjan`s potential run for the nomination in early April.

“There is no question of a nomination fight with anyone as our leader has already stated that if we want good candidates then we have to treat them like star candidates and give them all the tools for the real election fight and not have these time and energy consuming fights within the party.

“We have to defeat the Conservatives in the next election and we are going to do with concentrating all our energies and resources on that and not nomination fights where we have excellent candidate and a high probability of capturing the seat, like in Vancouver South,” he added.

Sajjan also has the backing of many high powered individuals in Vancouver`s business and power community. It remains to be seen if a certain moderate Sikh faction will be actively campaigning against Sajjan if he gets the nomination to run in the next election, which is expected to be called earlier by PM Stephen Harper than the originally expected date of Oct-Nov. 2015.