Chandigarh, October 14
Former SGPC chief G.S. Tohra said today former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had kept most of the SGPC members at Balasar village in Haryana under the protection of the Haryana police.
Mr Badal had caused a great damage to the SGPC and other Sikh institutions. To win over SGPC members, Mr Badal offered them bus permits, allotted liquor vends and extended other material benefits during SAD-BJP rule in Punjab. Mr Badal had set a wrong precedent of government intervention in the affairs of the apex Sikh religious body.
Lashing out at Mr Badal, Mr Tohra said the Union Government was also interfering in the internal religious affairs of Sikhs to support Mr Badal. Was his interference in the affairs of the SGPC justified? Mr Tohra has posed this question to Mr Badal. Was the kidnapping of SGPC members by the Haryana police and to keep them at a distant place justified? said Mr Tohra posing another question to Mr Badal.
“I have always remained against government interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs”, asserted Mr Tohra. He urged Mr Badal to free all SGPC members. He also exhorted the SGPC members to speak the truth.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said that former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal would be arrested soon in a corruption case. The government’s job was to investigate the case and put the matter before the court, he added.
He did not apprehend any violence in the wake of Mr Badal’s arrest. No one would extend support to Mr Badal in a corruption case, he asserted. He said the case against Mr Badal was not a political vendetta.
The October 14 Cabinet meeting which was postponed because of Dasehra would now
be held on October 16.The Chief Minister said that Mr Badal was forcibly taking SGPC members to Haryana to pressurise them into casting votes in favour of the SAD candidate in the coming SGPC presidential election. Certain SGPC members had sought security from the state government in view of a threat from Mr Badal to take them away to Haryana.
No member of the religious body had been put under surveillance. As the former Chief Minister had lost his clout in the SGPC he was issuing various statements against the government, the Chief Minister claimed.
