NORTH DELTA – Delta-North Green Party representative Deepak Kanchi says that about 10 signs in intersections and the front lawns of supporters of candidate Neema Manral were face down in the dirt while campaign signs for the BC Liberal and BC NDP remained standing.
Starting just before the Thanksgiving long weekend, several campaign signs for Delta North’s Green Party candidate were knocked down.
“I don’t know why and who is doing this but this is hate against the party,” Kanchi told Delta Optimist. “This [election] is for the betterment of the community, so why are they using these kinds of tactics?”
The Greens have never been competitive. However this year, its candidate could siphon off enough votes from admirers of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to cost Kahlon his seat.
Manral, who’s also secretary and spokesperson of Friends of Canada-India, recently came under attack for being a pro-India and pro-Modi stooge.
Georgia Straight article written by Gurpreet Singh, the husband of NDP candidate Rachna Singh, said Manral helped organize 73rd-anniversary celebrations of India’s Independence Day in Metro Vancouver with a patriotic car rally on August 16. At this event, more than 200 motor vehicles waving Canadian and Indian flags travelled from Radio India’s office in Surrey’s York Business Centre to the Vancouver Art Gallery.
There is absolutely no connection to any link between Manral’s pro-Modi stand and the vandalism of her signs but according to her supporters, she has filed a police complaint and the police is looking into who vandalized her signs
Kanchi says the campaign is going to put the signs back up as soon as possible.
“That’s all we want to do, we don’t want to get into a fight or anything, we don’t want trouble for our Delta residents,” he said.
Kanchi added the campaign will be informing Delta bylaws and will be filing a complaint with Delta police.
“We are all neighbours to each other, we should do something which can build society, we should not spread hatred by doing these kinds of hateful things,” he told Delta Optimist.
