Division Among BC Liberals' Indo-Canadian Supporters To Hurt Fassbender And Virk!

In the 2013 election, NDP's three-time MLA  Jagrup Brar shockingly lost by just 200 votes to BC Liberal Peter Fassbender when his party seemed to be cruising to victory with Brar dreaming of being the Minister of something. But Brar has learned the hard way and he's taking no chances in this election with he and his troops working overtime to win this time around. Candidates like Brar and Gary Begg in Surrey-Guildford (opposite Amrik Virk) and even former NDP MP Jinny Sims will need to win their seats  as well as retaining the other 3 seats they already have in Surrey to ensure the NDP squeaks by and wins the election Tuesday. The BC Liberals on the other hand are facing many problems in keeping their supporters focused in Surrey and in months leading up to the election there was a mutiny brewing in Surrey after Christy Clark put all her Surrey political eggs in MP Sukh Dhaliwal's basket by choosing his candidate Puneet Sandher to run in Surrey-Panorama instead of holding an open nomination. This created deep divisions in BC Liberals' Indo-Canadian supporters which is expected to bite Fassbender and maybe even Amrik Virk right where it hurts.

By R. Paul Dhillon

SURREY – In the 2013 election, NDP's three-time MLA  Jagrup Brar shockingly lost by just 200 votes to BC Liberal Peter Fassbender when his party seemed to be cruising to victory with Brar dreaming of being the Minister of something.

But Brar has learned the hard way and he's taking no chances in this election with he and his troops working overtime to win this time around.

Candidates like Brar and Gary Begg in Surrey-Guildford (opposite Amrik Virk) and even former NDP MP Jinny Sims will need to win their seats  as well as retaining the other 3 seats they already have in Surrey to ensure the NDP squeaks by and wins the election Tuesday.

The BC Liberals on the other hand are facing many problems in keeping their supporters focused in Surrey and in months leading up to the election there was a mutiny brewing in Surrey after Christy Clark put all her Surrey political eggs in MP Sukh Dhaliwal's basket by choosing his candidate Puneet Sandher to run in Surrey-Panorama instead of holding an open nomination.

This created deep divisions in BC Liberals' Indo-Canadian supporters which is expected to bite Fassbender and maybe even Amrik Virk right where it hurts, not to mention setting up another nasty fight between Dhaliwal and his federal rival Jinny Sims in Surrey-Panorama.  This one will be the most interesting to watch as even though Sandhar is no match for the much experienced and savvy Sims – the Dhaliwal factor will make things tight for Sims, who is expected to win the riding.

But Clark made things even worst by abandoning Dhaliwal, who was also upset that she did not allow his man to run in Surrey-Green Timbers.

Clark tried to go back to the BC Liberal supporters led by Prem Vinning but basically the situation in Surrey for the BC Liberals is a mess, which doesn’t bode well for them in Surrey unless they have turned things around in the last few weeks of the election.

Getting the vote out is going to be key for both the BC Liberals and NDP not just in Surrey but also  across BC as the LINK reported last week that the election is basically dead and unexciting, something that was confirmed this week by an Angus Reid poll, which said the same thing that both parties have not created much excitement with the voters and that the election was tight.

In last week's big TV leaders debate, there was no obvious winner and the debate mirrored the dead election where no leader is really lighting it up like PM Justin Trudeau did for the Liberals in the last election leading to a sweep for his party or when late federal NDP leader Jack Layton inspired voters to give his party the Official Opposition status for the first time ever.

Experts say all three party leaders were lacking substances in their responses during TV leaders debate, although the Vancouver Sun gave NDP leader John Horgan a debate victory by a very slight margin. While some political pundits said BC Liberal Leader Christy Clark appeared distracted during second, final debate.

So it may very well come down to the hustling of candidates at the riding level to get the vote out on May 9 and before, starting this weekend at the Advance Polls. The candidates will not be able to count on their party leaders to give them momentum so door knocking and simply getting their supporters to the polls to vote may be enough to win for them.