M A I N   N E W S

Delay in SGPC poll certain
Sarbjit Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 18
The SGPC elections, which should be held well before November 20 this year, will be delayed by six months or so. And it will be a big relief to the ruling SAD-BJP combine, which does not seem to be in a mood to face the poll to the SGPC before the Assembly elections in Punjab.

Informed sources said today that though the process of enrolling new voters and preparation of the electoral rolls would be put in motion within a month, there was not even a remote chance of holding the elections to the SGPC before the due date (November 20).

The process of registering new voters and printing the new electoral rolls will take at least six months. And after the printing of the poll rolls some more time will be required to meet other official requirements like issuing the notification, etc. That means the elections to the SGPC will not be possible before March next year.

Interestingly, the elections to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha are also supposed to be held well before March 2. The five-year term of the present House is due to end on March 2. To elect the new House, the elections will have to be held a week or so before the expiry of the term of the Vidhan Sabha. Even after the declaration of the results of the Assembly elections, about five days are required to issue the notification naming the new members of the House.

Sources said that keeping all factors and circumstances in view, the elections to the SGPC would only be held after the Assembly poll. This means that the elections will be held when the next government in the state is in the saddle.

As per the Sikh Gurdwaras Act,1925, the elections to the SGPC should be held every five years. However, there is a big flaw in the relevant clause.

It says that the elections should be held every five years, but the members of the House of the SGPC will continue to be its members till the new House is elected. Taking advantage of this lacuna, the elections to the previous House (the present one was elected on November 20, 1996) had not been held for about two decades. The elections were held in November, 1996, on the intervention of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

However, sources said that as the authorities concerned had then given a written undertaking in the court that the elections to the SGPC would be held every five years, the government was legally bound to hold the poll by the due date. However, as no one had knocked at the door of the court in this connection so far, the authorities could afford to delay the elections by some months.

Sources said that the Union Home Ministry had ordered the revision of the electoral rolls pertaining to the SGPC poll after its attention was drawn to the undertaking given in the court to hold the elections every five years. The Union Home Ministry was told that if the process to hold the poll was not initiated at this stage, the Centre might have to face embarrassment if anyone went to court in this connection.

Obviously, the elections will be held as per the existing provisions of the Sikh Gurdwaras Act,1925 as the necessary amendments proposed to the Act by the SGPC to the Union Government have not been effected so far. It may be mentioned here that the SGPC, by passing a resolution a few years ago, had urged the Union Government to amend the Act. The main amendment sought was to omit the word “Sehajdhari” from the Act. In other words, the intention of the SGPC was to deny the voting right to Sehajdharis (person with a trimmed beard or kesh, who does not smoke or take alcoholic drinks) as it felt that in the garb of Sehajdharis, hundreds of persons, who did not even have a remote connection with the Sikh religion had got themselves registered as voters of the SGPC.

The Union Government preferred to consult the state government headed by Mr Parkash Singh Badal before going in for any amendments. It referred the SGPC’s proposal to the Badal government for comments. However, as the amendment suggested by the SGPC had the potential of turning into a big controversy and this was election year, the Badal government preferred to sit over the proposal and did not send any comment.

Sources said that the Union Home Ministry had recently sent a letter to the Badal government giving it a week’s time to comment on the amendments proposed by the SGPC. There was no response to that letter and later the Centre ordered the revision of the poll rolls, etc.

There are 120 constituencies of the SGPC to elect 170 members, including 30 women and 20 Scheduled Castes from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and the Union Territory of Chandigarh. There are 50 double-member constituencies. There are about 46 lakh voters, including 42.50 lakh in Punjab alone. The total strength of the SGPC House is 191 — 170 elected members, 15 co-opted members and six ex-officio members.