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Round One To Dosanjh

A P Kamath

The opponents of Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh -- the front-runner in an election to replace disgraced British Columbia premier Glenn Clark, who resigned in August -- were rubbing their hands in glee on Friday.

A front-page story in the Vancouver Province had revealed that at least two people who enrolled recently in the New Democratic Party did not know anything about their membership. One of them was a 15 year old who wondered who might have signed his membership card. Besides, he had no idea what the NDP was.

The report came out amidst mounting demands by Dosanjh's opponents that thousands of new members who signed in 'bulk' should not be allowed to participate in the party election early next year. The election is to choose the party leader who automatically becomes the premier. Most 'bulk' members are Indo-Canadians.

But Dosanjh overcame the powerful challenge to his candidacy. At an emergency meeting of his NDP on Saturday, it was decided not to reject the new, 'bulk' members.

His opponents had accused him and his supporters of enrolling more than 6,000 Indo-Canadian voters in the last four months, to boost his candidacy.

Dosanjh's rivals include fellow Sikh cabinet minister Moe Sihota, who is backed by militant Sikhs who dislike the attorney-general's consistent criticism of Khalistanis. Sihota, the economic security minister, might join three others in challenging Dosanjh.

Though other NDP leaders too have admitted they too have tried bulk enrollment, Dosanjh's critics called his record spectacular.

Dosanjh had said earlier that his enrollment efforts were not going to be limited to Indo-Canadians and that he plans to enroll Chinese, Vietnamese, Hispanic and mainstream voters, too. But in the face of persistent criticism, he gave up the plan about two months ago. He rejected the demand that he should ask the new members to resign from the NDP.

Gordon Wilson, the education minister and an opponent of Dosanjh, had called the mass enrollment a "fraud" and a "serious issue". He wants a complete audit of new members conducted on a war footing.

Wilson's Indo-Canadian wife Judy Tayebji is seeking support for her husband in the Indian community, but has not taken the mass enrollment route.

Dosanjh's supporters threatened on Saturday to take the issue to the British Columbia Human Rights Commission if the 'bulk' members were not allowed to participate in the choice of the new party leader.

Charan Gill, who has been with the NDP for over 20 years, said the criticism smacked of racism, and suggested that Indo-Canadians did not have minds of their own.

"This is a transparent attempt to inflict damage on our candidate," said David Schreck, a Dosanjh supporter. "This is a dirty trick."

Dosanjh's opponents say they wanted to prevent a stampede of new members from skewing the results in the upcoming election.

The emergency measure would have eliminated members enlisted after September 22 from the process to select convention delegates. The traditional cut-off date is December 20.

NDP's ranks have surged from 13,000 to 24,000 since August.

"The party has an obligation where there is an allegation that someone has not properly signed up... to track them down," temporary premier Dan Miller said prior to Saturday's meeting.

"The party would want to take steps both to ensure that all those members who have signed up are legitimate members and to issue some pretty clear instructions that this (fraudulent enrollment) should not happen," he said.

But party leaders assured the participants at the emergency meeting that such instances were very few.

"I said at the beginning that whatever the party's decision was would be acceptable to me," Dosanjh said after the vote. "And this decision is acceptable because it is the party's decision."

Ron Stipp, the party's provincial secretary, said the debate preceding the vote had allowed party president Bruce Ralston to clear up some misunderstandings.

"Moving the date back to September 20 would have had a minor effect, really, on the delegate selection process -- that was made clear by the party president.

However, the party will address questions about fraudulent memberships, Stipp said.

"We will be doing an audit of some of the memberships," he said. "We'll be looking at returned mail that comes to us and taking some doorstep and phone audits of the membership.

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