The government on Friday, July 17, announced senior Punjab BJP leader Harjit Singh Grewal as the new Chairman of the National Commission for Minorities.
Official orders said Grewal has been given this post for a three-year term. The decision has been taken ahead of the Assembly elections in Punjab early next year.
Political experts believe the BJP did this to win back support among Sikh voters in the state. Grewal became a well-known face across India during the farmers’ protest near Delhi. Even when local public anger was very high against the BJP, he constantly went on TV channels to defend the government’s farm laws.
“I will do this job with absolute honesty,” Grewal told reporters. He said his long life in politics will help him run the commission without any issues and solve minority problems fast.
Grewal, who hails from Patiala, has spent more than 30 years working closely with both the BJP and the RSS. He was the chief of the Punjab Khadi Board from 2013 to 2017 and also worked as the vice-president of the Punjab BJP unit, besides working for the national executive group. He even contested the 2017 Assembly polls in Punjab from the Rajpura seat, but lost.
His political career has seen heavy fights too. In 2020, Grewal openly claimed that Naxalites and bad elements had entered the farmers’ protest. This made Punjab’s villages very angry. Many panchayats put up banners to boycott him socially and economically, telling people not to lease any farming land to his family.
Things got worse in 2021 when a crowd of angry farmers trapped him inside a bakery in Patiala. Local police had to run in and rescue him through a back door to save him from the mob. His family fields were also damaged during the peak of the agitation.
But Grewal has also shown he can fight his own party leaders for Punjab. In 2024, he openly slammed BJP MP Kangana Ranaut when she made loose comments against farmers. He called her statements totally irresponsible. He said just becoming an MP doesn’t make someone a mature leader and complained directly to the top bosses in Delhi.
Recently in 2025, Grewal attacked the Shiromani Akali Dal. He compared Sukhbir Singh Badal to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and said the Akali Dal is now just a family business with zero democracy. Even his local meetings have seen chaos. In April 2024, during a Punjab BJP meeting, workers started throwing chairs at each other. Security guards had to quickly pull Grewal and other senior leaders off the stage into a safe room.