WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh does a quick scan of the ca­reer graph of teacher-turned-diplo­mat-turned politi­cian Harinder Singh Khalsa, who yes­ter­day joined the Bharatiya Janta Party.

In a span of three decades, the ag­gres­sively low caste-con­scious and ob­sti­nate Harinder Singh Khalsa has trav­elled a jour­ney from be­ing an In­dian diplo­mat in Oslo to a part-time hu­man rights ac­tivist to be­com­ing a Pan­thic hero for re­lin­quish­ing his diplo­matic post af­ter the In­dian army at­tack on Dar­bar Sahib in June 1984 to Mem­ber Par­lia­ment to SGPC sec­re­tary to Mem­ber Par­lia­ment again. So far so good.

Sadly, he reached the nadir of his ca­reer yes­ter­day by join­ing the right-wing, sworn en­emy of mi­nori­ties –Bharatiya Janta Party.

In all these thirty years, one can re­call the fame and ho­n­our that was show­ered by the com­mu­nity on this ‘gen­tle­man politi­cian’ but Harinder Singh Khalsa did not re­turn back in the same coin.

To his credit, in the last five years, since he ac­ci­den­tally be­came a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment from the Fate­hgarh Sahib con­stituency, as a nom­i­nee of the Aam Aadmi Party, he he did con­stituency-re­lated work and dis­trib­uted largesse to schools, vil­lages and fo­rums from his con­stituency fund.

He did not pro­vide lead­er­ship ei­ther on the Pun­jab front or on the Pan­thic plat­form. Dur­ing these years, the com­mu­nity and the peo­ple of Pun­jab saw many ups and downs, faced umpteen prob­lems, but Harinder Singh Khalsa made no noise about them in Par­lia­ment. In fact, his par­lia­men­tary record does not match his con­stituency work.

The fact of the mat­ter is that all these years, he was cog­i­tat­ing about which party to join and ended up with Mod­i’s BJP.  He is strongly fickle-minded.

It would not be wrong to say that bu­reau­crats who have served at the high­est ech­e­lons of power find it ex­tremely un­com­fort­able to play sec­ond fid­dle to any­one, even in pol­i­tics. In Pun­jab, af­ter the last gen­eral elec­tion, AAP party head Arvind Ke­jri­wal and Pun­jab in­charge San­jay Singh made it even more dif­fi­cult for him and many oth­ers. Party dis­ci­pline, deco­rum and build­ing a de­mo­c­ra­tic fi­bre does not come eas­ily.

The Sikhs be damned. Harinder Singh Khalsa is now wor­ried about tak­ing the coun­try for­ward with the BJP.

Will he con­test elec­tions from any con­stituency in Pun­jab? He says he will not and per­haps he will not. He would like to do a ‘Sid­hu’ for the BJP who is look­ing for ‘Sikh’ faces other than the Akali Dal faces for their cam­paign.

His il­lus­tri­ous fa­ther Gopal Singh Khalsa, who was a sea­soned politi­cian and so­cial worker, must be turn­ing in his grave at the turn of events.  For how long will Harinder Singh Khalsa re­main with the BJP? Well, that de­pends upon who forms the next gov­ern­ment in New Delhi.