Former BC New Democrat MLA and cabinet minister Harry Lali is blasting his own party for the way it has handled the process to install David Eby as the province’s next Premier.

“When it looked like that Eby might not win, the establishment basically lit their hair on fire.”

Lali argues there is double standard by the Executive of his party to disqualify Anjali Appadurai from the leadership race, noting the United Steelworkers Union push behind the scenes to sign up NDP members to support David Eby.

“The NDP has been becoming less and less democratic, especially since Raj Sihota [former NDP Executive Director] and Craig Keating [former NDP President] took office,” argues Lali.  “John Horgan turned a blind-eye to it, and that’s going to be his legacy.”

Lali says he didn’t support Appadurai as a candidate and questions whether she would have won the leadership race.

However, he contends her dismissal a symptom of the centralization of power within the NDP’s head office by what he calls the “party establishment.”

“When you get this young, dynamic, intelligent, brown woman that decides that she’s going to put her name in, they do everything possible to put roadblocks in her way to basically push her out,” said Lali.

I've got questions into the BCNDP regarding this membership drive in support of the Eby campaign – dated Aug 22nd. It's pretty clear they're asking ppl to sign up for memberships for purely strategic purposes. Not sure if it was ever up on the USW 1-1937 webpage, but it aint now. pic.twitter.com/wbFRvTofHl

— Brett Mineer (@MineerBrett) October 20, 2022

He goes on to argue that the current NDP government under outgoing Premier John Horgan is beginning to create a regional divide within the province.

“Since the NDP has become government in 2017, there’s a whole lot of alienation that has taken place between urban BC and rural BC. Out here in rural BC, we feel that the NDP doesn’t care about us anymore. They don’t care about mining, and forestry and agriculture.”

Suggesting this fracture within the New Democratic Party is going to be difficult to mend, Lali questions the olive branch put forward to Appadurai supporters by David Eby as he took over the NDP leadership on Friday.

Speaking at UBC in his first public appearance after taking over as leader, David Eby suggested he wants to mend fences with Appadurai supporters within the NDP.

“All of the people who joined the party to support Anjali and that vision, who joined in good faith, I want to say I look forward to working with you.”

However, Lali questions the sincerity of that pledge.

“The supposed peace offering sounds pretty hollow,” said Lali.

“You’ve got a dual role being played by Eby on the one side trying to take the high-road, be conciliatory and say he’ll work with Anjali and her people if you want to bring them into the party,” he suggests. “Then on the other side you’ve got John Horgan going out there just basically laying the lumber to not only Anjali Appadurai, and also to her followers, calling them names and all sorts of fake rage aimed at them.”

No love-lost between Lali and current NDP brass

It should be noted that Harry Lali and many members of the NDP executive have been at-odds for a number of years.

Lali took the NDP nomination for the Fraser-Nicola riding in 2017 ahead of current NDP President Aaron Sumexheltza, whom John Horgan had personally endorsed instead of Lali.

In fact, Horgan admitted at the time to trying to dissuade Lali from running.

Although Horgan did later back his campaign, Lali went on to lose the 2017 election to current Fraser-Nicola MLA, BC Liberal Jackie Tegart.

There were also issues with the more recent nomination process for the riding ahead of the last election in 2020.

Harry Lali accused then-NDP president Craig Keating of undemocratically parachuting Sumexheltza into the riding.

“There were several other people who were interested in running for the nomination but Craig Keating and Raj Sihota – the Executive Director of the BC NDP – again rigged it so that at the end of the day Aaron got appointed,” said Lali at the time.

Harry Lali, who first came to office in 1991 with the NDP, later served as a former Transportation and Highways Minister under three previous New Democrat Premiers — Glen Clark, Dan Miller and Ujjal Dosanjh.