Congress Deputy Leader in the Lok Sabha and Amritsar MP Capt Amarinder Singh today cautioned the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh against being misled by the Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Deputy Chief Minister son Sukhbir Badal on the issue of a separate SGPC for Haryana. “It would be better if the government of India keeps off the matter”, he warned.Referring to the reports that both the Badals had pleaded with the Union Home Minister not to allow Haryana to set up a separate SGPC for the Sikhs living there, Capt Amarinder said, this will not only amount to interfering into the constitutional and legislative right of the state but also ignoring and overlooking the sentiments of an overwhelming majority of lakhs of Sikhs living there.
The former Chief Minister reminded Mr Singh about separate Gurdwara managing committees at places like Delhi, Bihar and Maharashtra. “When these states can have their separate and independent Gurdwara Managing Committees why deny a similar right to the Sikhs of Haryana?” he asked.Questioning the Badals’ claims that a separate body for Haryana will pide Sikhs, the senior Congress leader remarked, while an overwhelming majority of Sikhs there (in Haryana) wanted a separate independent body for managing the Gurdwara affairs there, even in Punjab most of the Sikhs and political organisations, except the Badals and the Akali Dal they control, have already voiced their support for a separate Gurdwara Managing Committee for Haryana.“Moreover, the very fact that the Badals and the SGPC president were alleging that the Congress government in Haryana was doing it to get the support of Sikhs in the ensuing elections there only proved that they (the Sikhs living in Haryana) wanted it”, he pointed out, while asking, “otherwise why should anyone do it if the people for whom it is meant do not want it?”