Iqbal Singh Ahluwalia takes charge as Punjab RSS chief

Iqbal Singh Ahluwalia, 67, has been appointed chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh’s Punjab unit.

Ahulwalia replaces RSS veteran Brijbhushan Bedi, 90, who remained sangh sanchalak (state head) for 26 years.

The new office-bearers of the state unit of the RSS was announced on Sunday after their annual meeting in Chandigarh.

The appointment of a Sikh face as the Punjab RSS head is significant in the backdrop SAD’s break-up with the BJP.

Symbolically, it signals the saffron party’s strategy on Sikh outreach and make inroads in rural Punjab.

In the tumultuous ‘80s, Daya Singh Singh Sodhi of Amritsar was the Sikh face of the RSS in Punjab followed by Rulda Singh of Patiala, who was assassinated by Sikh radicals.

Ahluwalia, whose father was also an active member of the RSS, belongs to Sangrur and is a retired employee of the Food Corporation of India (FCI).

Rajneesh Arora, a former vice-chancellor of Punjab Technical University (PTU), has been appointed prant sah sanghchalak or state vice-president. An IIT alumnus, Arora has been an active member of the RSS since his childhood and has worked with the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, a social arm of the sangh that serves the backward and socially downtrodden.

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