Liberal Party called to expel candidate for anti-Sikh threats

The Liberal Party of Canada is facing calls to withdraw Viresh Bansal from his standing in Oshawa (Ontario), after the MP candidate was found making online anti-Sikh threats of violence, including to the current Conservative Party Deputy Leader.

India-born Hindu Bansal was exposed this week for tweets in March 2023 which include homophobia, as well as anti-Sikh and anti-Canadian rhetoric. In one particularly chilling tweet, Bansal tells Conservative Party Deputy Leader Tim Uppal to “Take care of your own” before threatening “maybe you too could get beaten up” in Punjabi.

Leading national advocacy body World Sikh Organization released a press release calling for “Ontario Liberal Party to withdraw Viresh Bansal as their candidate for Oshawa” in the upcoming provincial election next week based on his “hate filled tweets”. In a statement (see below), WSO President Danish Singh also condemned the “homophobic rhetoric” used as part of a pattern “targeting Sikh politicians”, including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh. In one tweet to Jagmeet Singh, Bansal also appears to call Canadians “trash people”. The WSO stated they also identified other anti-Sikh tweets from Bansal, although he has since deleted many of his previous posts.

One tweet was in direct response to Uppal addressing wider concerns of India’s #PunjabUnderSiege operation in March 2023, which saw internet and phone services blocked in parts of the state, covering up over 1500 of detainments of Sikh activists, politicians and community figures. Read more on that situation here.

Thus far, the Liberal Party have failed to act to prevent Bansal’s standing, prompting concern about how seriously the party takes anti-Sikh hate. This is not the first time the party have been accused of such an issue. Previous incidents regarding MP Chandra Arya – another India-born Hindu man – have seen Sikh groups press for action from Justin Trudeau’s party (the recently resigned leader who has been replaced by Mark Carney since).

In response to the exposing of his anti-Sikh tweets, Bansal released a statement which offered an apology but no resignation. Similarly, Liberal Party Ontario leader Bonnie Crombie condemned the comments but did not say the party would be withdrawing Bansal’s standing, or taking any further action.

Sikh groups remain waiting on further action by the Liberal Party against Bansal before the upcoming national election takes place.