Bhai Baldev Singh Wadala

Bhai Baldev Singh Wadala is a kirtaniya and Panthic campaigner. He was a Hazoori Ragi of Sri Darbar Sahib, Amritsar, until the SGPC moved against him in 2015, and he heads the Sikh Sadbhawna Dal. In June 2024 he announced a political party, the Sher-e-Punjab Dal.

Key moments

• September 2015, transfer to Jind. After the SGPC appointed Harcharan Singh, a former banker, as chief secretary on a salary of Rs 3 lakh a month, Wadala led protests calling the post unnecessary and politically motivated. On 11 September 2015 a transfer order sent him to Gurdwara Nauvin Patshahi in Jind, Haryana, describing the move as punishment for "speaking against the organization and indulging in indiscipline". Wadala said his loyalty was to the Guru and the Guru's principles, not to the SGPC or any individual.
• 2016, suspension and Sikh Sadbhawna Dal. In March 2016 Sikh Siyasat reported that the SGPC had reportedly suspended him, after its president Avtar Singh Makkar said he was working against the interests of the Panth. At a Sikh Sadbhawna Dal conference on 22 March 2016 Wadala called for a movement to reform Gurdwara administration and compared the group controlling the SGPC to the notorious Narainu Mahant. By June 2016 Sikh Siyasat reported that the SGPC had terminated his service as Hazoori Ragi. He was detained by Amritsar police on 15 June 2016 and released.
• 2016, Sikh prisoners and SGPC spending. In February 2016 he criticised the Badal government for not securing the release of Sikh political prisoners held after their minimum sentences. In August 2016 he alleged that the SGPC was buying furniture for its Saragarhi Sarai from a foreign firm at above-market prices; an SGPC additional secretary rejected the allegation.
• The 328 saroops. He began the Panthic Hoka protest seeking accountability for 328 missing saroops of Sri Guru Granth Sahib from the SGPC publishing operation, a campaign Sikh Siyasat describes as five years long. From 4 November 2020 members of his Sikh Sadbhawna Dal and of Gurdwara Akal Bunga held a sit-in on Heritage Street, the approach to Sri Darbar Sahib; in January 2021 the protesters gheraoed the Amritsar police commissioner's residence, and in August 2022 police lifted the Dal's dharna near Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's residence in Sangrur at night, which Wadala said ended with protesters bussed to Patiala jail. An earlier probe set up by the Akal Takht found tampered entries and concluded that one employee was corrupt and that there was no wider conspiracy; many Sikh groups rejected that finding. On 7 December 2025 Punjab Police registered FIR 168/2025 at C Division police station, Amritsar, naming 16 people, among them the former SGPC chief secretary Dr Roop Singh. The SGPC called the FIR government interference in Sikh institutions, and its president Harjinder Singh Dhami warned the state government to stay out.
• June 2024, Sher-e-Punjab Dal. At the Chandigarh Press Club, timed to the 185th death anniversary of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, he announced the new party. He cited the 328 missing saroops, the conversion of free sarais into commercial hotels, alleged scams over leftover langar food, drug addiction among youth, and the failures of successive governments, and said the Akali Dal had become a party of family power. Its stated aims include the release of Sikh prisoners, freeing the SGPC from factional control, justice in sacrilege cases, and unity among Sikh, Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities.

What he is remembered for: being moved out of Sri Darbar Sahib for opposing a chief secretary's appointment and salary, then pressing the SGPC from outside, for years, over its money and its custody of saroops. The SGPC's position is that the 2025 case is state interference in Sikh institutions. Wadala welcomed the FIR, which followed five years of Panthic protest.