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Ontario Liberals suspend Viresh Bansal’s Oshawa campaign for alarming social media posts attacking Sikhs
The Ontario Liberal Party has confirmed that Viresh Bansal’s campaign as the candidate for Oshawa has been suspended.
“Bonnie Crombie has condemned Viresh Bansal’s comments in the strongest possible terms, and his campaign has been suspended,” the Liberals confirmed late Friday afternoon. “His views do not represent the views of the Ontario Liberal Party.”
Bansal, whose inflammatory social media remarks posted in 2023 went viral earlier this week, faced widespread backlash after he condoned the 2023 assassination of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar and made a homophobic comment about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Viresh Bansal, who had been the Oshawa candidate for the Ontario Liberals, has been dropped by the Party.
(Viresh Bansal)
After federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh posted on September 18, 2023, that Canadians had just learned agents of the Indian government were allegedly involved in the murder of Mr. Nijjar, Bansal replied on X the same day: “@theJagmeetSingh You can thank India for cleaning trash people. Ask your gay friend @JustinTrudeau to do the same.”
An earlier post by Bansal in March of the same year contained a threat directed at Conservative MP Tim Uppal, who had raised concern over the Indian government’s efforts to stifle communication about the murder of a prominent Sikh by cutting off internet access. Bansal replied on X: "Dekhi kitten tere naal vi kutt khanni na hoje,” which in Punjabi means, “watch out or you might get roughed up as well.”
The Ontario NDP and the World Sikh Organization (WSO) called for Bansal’s immediate resignation, condemning his comments as hateful, dangerous, and legitimizing violence against Sikh Canadians.
“Bansal’s post is a disgusting endorsement of an extrajudicial killing by India and a homophobic attack on Canada’s Prime Minister,” Danish Singh, WSO President, said.
Demands mounted for Bansal to be dropped by the Ontario Liberals.
“There is no place in Canadian politics for candidates who celebrate state-sponsored killings and use hateful, homophobic rhetoric. Bansal has shown a pattern of anti-Sikh hate targeting Sikh politicians. Bansal’s words are not just offensive—they are dangerous and legitimize violence against minorities in Canada,” Singh said.
After his earlier social media posts were published by various media outlets, Bansal wrote an apology on his X account Tuesday.
“I deeply regret the hurtful and thoughtless comments I posted on Twitter in the heat of the moment. I want to sincerely apologize, especially to the Sikh and LGBTQ2S+ communities.” He continued. “Sikhs have long faced discrimination and violence, and my comments only added to that pain. That kind of language should never be used, anywhere, let alone in the context of a Canadian’s murder.”
He has now been dropped as a Liberal candidate, but at the time of publication Bansal’s campaign website remained active, and he had not issued a public statement about his removal by the Liberals.
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