Patiala, May 26 (Ozi news desk): Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal today appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to free Sikh religious institutions from the control of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), saying even the British had not dared to break the Shiromani Committee as had been done by the BJP led central government.
The SAD president, who was addressing a mammoth public gathering here in favour of party candidate N K Sharma, said “the Prime minister during his recent visit to Punjab talked about how his government had created the Kartarpur Corridor and even asserted that if the BJP had been in power after independence it would not have allowed Kartarpur to go to Pakistan. This may be true but it is also a fact that the central government has facilitated handing over of the most sacred shrines of the Sikhs – including Takth Sri Hazur Sahib and Sri Patna Sahib – to the RSS. It is also true that the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee has been taken over by the RSS and even the Shiromani Committee has been broken to create a separate gurdwara committee for Haryana”.
Asserting that even the British had not dared to break the SGPC as had been done by the BJP government, Mr Sukhbir Badal said “these steps are very disconcerting”. He also pointed out that some self-styled panthic leaders like Dhyan Singh Mand, Jasbir Singh Rode and Baljit Singh Daduwal, who were working overtime to weaken the SAD and the SGPC, were actually working at the behalf of central agencies.
Speaking about the moral depravity in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Mr Badal said “an obscene video of AAP minister Balkar Singh has set another low in Punjab politics. Even though this issue had been in the public realm since the last many months, the AAP government did not probe the case. Now the obscene video of the minister is in the public sphere”. He said earlier an obscene video of food and civil supplies minister Lal Chand Kataruchak had also surfaced but even then the AAP government had constituted a SIT to suppress the case by intimidating the complainant.
Speaking about the Patiala constituency at the rally which broke all previous records by its sheer magnitude, Mr Badal said “the SAD is committed to solving the menace of floods once and for all by laying ‘bundhs’ along the Ghaggar River. He also lauded N K Sharma’s contribution in public life, especially the manner in which he has assisted to develop Mohali and Zirakpur.
Mr N K Sharma while speaking on the occasion highlighted how the AAP government was discriminating against farmers by not giving adequate compensation to them for acquiring land for the Rs 764 crore Patiala ring road project. He said both the Congress and AAP had done nothing to prevent the flooding of Shutrana and Devigarh areas in the constituency even as he promised to lay bandhs to solve this problem. He also assured to do his utmost to establish a hospital like AIIMS in Patiala.
Senior leader Surjit Singh Rakhra appealed to the people to evaluate the character of the candidates in the fray.He said both the Congress candidate Dharamvir Gandhi and the BJP candidate Preneet Kaur were turncoats who had betrayed their mother parties and could not be trusted with their votes while N K Sharma had worked consistently for society for the last 30 years.
