He is survived by four sons and three daughters. His son Gurpartap Wadala is the Nakodar MLA while his son-in-law Arvinder Bains is an IAS officer.
Though Wadala contested at least four times, he became MLA only once in 1985 defeating his cousin and Congress leader Umrao Singh. The two fought against one another in the 1980 Assembly polls and 1993 Lok Sabha Jalandhar bypolls too and on both occasions Umrao Singh won. “Sharing a very warm relation otherwise, they indulged in very healthy politics. As soon as elections would be over, they would shun their differences and sit together,” said ex-MLA Jagbir Brar, whose wife is closely related to the Wadalas.
Considered one of the most intellectual Akali leaders from the region of the 1980s and 1990s, he was well-connected with the national leadership of those times, including Harkishan Singh Surjit and Sharad Yadav. “Armed with a BSc (agriculture) degree and a good command of English, he even used to write articles in papers, his favourite topics being French, Russian and Pakistan economies,” said Principal Jaspal Singh of Guru Nanak National College, Nakodar, of which Wadala was a patron.
Originally hailing from a family of landlords of Pakistan, he had moved to Srin village in Nakodar. But the family lives at Wadala village near Jalandhar. “This house was the venue of all meetings regarding the Longowal pact. All prominent Akali and SGPC leaders, including Jagdev Singh Talwandi, Parkash Singh Badal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra, used to sit here and do the planning,” Jaspal Singh recalled.
In 1996, Wadala had left the Akali Dal owing to differences with Badal and formed his own party SAD (Democratic). However, the party merged with the SAD (Badal) in 2004. He had last contested elections from Nakodar in 2007 which he lost. Since then his son Gurpartap has been contesting and has won on both occasions.
Though Wadala could not speak clearly for the past few years, he still remained active and used to hold press conferences regularly demanding a safe corridor from Dera Baba Nanak to Kartarpur gurdwala in Pakistan, where Guru Nanak lived for 18 years.
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