Virsa Singh Valtoha

Virsa Singh Valtoha is a Sikh politician from Punjab and a former leader of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). He is a living person; what is said of him below is attributed to those who said it. Wikipedia gives his birth year as 1960 and records that he sat in the Punjab Assembly from 2007 to 2017, first for Valtoha and then, after delimitation, for Khem Karan, and that he was Chief Parliamentary Secretary from 2012 to 2017.

His own account. In a May 2024 interview with The Tribune he said he took to Panthic activity at 15, that his family also suffered police torture, that he was held under the National Security Act in 1984 to 1986 and again in 1991 to 1992, and that he spent more than ten years in prison in his youth.

Key moments

• 2024 Lok Sabha: he is the SAD candidate at Khadoor Sahib and finishes fourth of 27 candidates with 86,416 votes, 8.28 percent. Amritpal Singh wins as an independent with 404,430 votes (Election Commission figures on IndiaVotes).
• 30 August 2024: the Akal Takht declares Sukhbir Singh Badal tankhaiya. Valtoha questions the delay in punishment on social media and says the jathedars, under BJP and RSS influence, mean to remove Sukhbir as SAD president (The Tribune).
• October 2024: Giani Raghbir Singh summons him. The Five Singh Sahiban hold him guilty of denting the credibility of the jathedars and say he did not back his claims with concrete evidence. Giani Raghbir Singh says he secretly recorded their conversation, which he called morally, ethically and legally incorrect, and finds his written clarification frivolous and baseless. The Takht directs SAD working president Balwinder Singh Bhunder to expel him within 24 hours, end his primary membership for ten years and bar him from party activity. Valtoha quits SAD himself, saying he accepts the verdict as a humble Sikh, and asks that the video of his meeting with the five high priests be made public.
• 16 October 2024: Giani Harpreet Singh, one of the two jathedars Giani Raghbir Singh said Valtoha had targeted, offers his resignation as Jathedar of Takht Damdama Sahib. He says Valtoha first attacked his character and then his family, and that he had received threatening calls. Valtoha rejects the allegations as baseless and suggests Harpreet Singh is the target of a conspiracy.
• 28 May 2025: Valtoha asks the Akal Takht to reconsider the decree. He calls himself a born Akali and seeks atonement from the Panth for any mistake made knowingly or unknowingly. The Tribune reports no response from the Takht or SAD.

What he is remembered for: the October 2024 episode, in which the Akal Takht used its authority over the party's leadership at a moment when the Takht and the Badal-led SAD were already at odds over the tankhaiya verdict on Sukhbir Singh Badal.