Appadurai fights back against ‘undemocratic’ BC NDP report

BC NDP leadership hopeful Anjali Appadurai is firing back at the party report that recommended she be disqualified from the race.

On Tuesday, a report by BC NDP Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Elizabeth Cull said Appadurai’s leadership campaign encouraged BC Green members to temporarily leave the party to vote for her NDP bid.

The report accuses Appadurai’s campaign of offering to pay membership fees for new members and using the Dogwood Initiative — a Victoria-based political organizing group — to recruit members.

Anjali Appadurai holds a press conference in Vancouver on Wednesday October 19th, 2022. (CityNews Image)

Read More: BC NDP chief electoral officer wants Appadurai barred from leadership race: report

In a news conference Wednesday, Appadurai took aim at an information bulletin posted by the electoral officer on Aug. 31 that made campaigns responsible for what third parties do during leadership races.

“This is clearly a new interpretation, it was not information that we had before Aug. 31. There is no way we could have known that interpretation in advance,” she said.

Appadurai says the bulletin was applied retroactively to cover events that took place weeks prior, like on Aug. 6, when the report says she promised backers that Dogwood and other groups would help her gather new members.

“Under the party’s rules the CEO does have the power to change the rules of a leadership contest during the course of the race, and while that’s unsettling, we accept it. But they don’t give the CEO the power to change the rules retroactively,” she said.

“[The CEO’s] whole case around Dogwood rests on that: a new and controversial interpretation of the rules, issued mid-campaign and applied retroactively,” Appadurai added.

Cull reported 17.7 per cent of the more than 2,000 new members were deemed “ineligible” because of ties to other parties.

Read More: BC NDP leadership candidate supporter questions membership process

Appadurai, however, insists her campaign is not guilty of any wrongdoing, saying the whole process was not fair to her.

“There has been not a single piece of evidence presented to justify this claim. Worse, with every good-faith new member the party turns away, the party acts against its own values to puts people first,” the leadership hopeful said.

Appadurai calls the whole situation an “undemocratic” way to disqualify her bid for the party leadership.

“It is distressing that they have taken the nuclear option. It risks ripping the party apart, further alienating the grassroots, tainting the new administration, and damaging the NDP’s chances in the next election in 2024,” she said.

Cull is a former NDP health minister who, in the 1990s, recommended immigrant doctors be barred from working in Canada to cut healthcare costs. About a million people in B.C. currently do not have a family doctor.

When the report was leaked Tuesday evening, Appadurai said she was “disappointed but not surprised” by the recommendation.

If Appadurai is disqualified from the BC NDP leadership race, it would mean David Eby would be the only candidate remaining.

The leadership race began after current NDP Leader and Premier John Horgan announced he was stepping down.

The BC NDP executive team is set to vote on the recommendation about Appadurai Wednesday evening.

With files from Michael Williams and Sonia Aslam.