Akali leader and Badal aide Kolianwali passes away

Party sources said the 68-year-old leader was battling stomach cancer and was hospitalised in Gurugram, where he died this morning

Dyal Singh Kolianwali, a senior Akali leader and aide of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, died at Medanta Hospital, Gurugram, on Monday morning.

Dyal Singh Kolianwali, 68, started his political career as the sarpanch of his native village and became the Muktsar district president of the Shiromani Akali Dal. He was a loyalist of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. (HT file photo)

Party sources said the 68-year-old leader was battling stomach cancer and was admitted to the hospital last week.

Akali patriarch Badal, who has been avoiding social gatherings since the Covid-19 outbreak last year, visited the ailing Kolianwali at his native village in Muktsar district’s Lambi last Monday.

Family sources said the last rites will be conducted on Monday evening.

A three-time Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) member, Kolianwali courted several controversies during his political career.

He was arrested by the state vigilance bureau in a disproportionate assets case in December 2018 and got bail in February 2019.

In December 2004, Kolianwali and his son Parminder were booked in a murder case before being acquitted by a court in 2011.

During the 2012 assembly elections, 15 packets of a suspicious substance were recovered from his house. He was later acquitted in the case.

He started his political career as a sarpanch of his native Kolianwali village and rose to become the Muktsar district president of the Shiromani Akali Dal. He was close to Badal and was appointed a member of the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board and chairman of Punjab Agro Foodgrains Corporation during his tenures as the chief minister.