Bathinda, July 30
The Communist Party of India (CPI) today asked all secular parties to stay away from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) elections because of its purely religious nature.

Stating this here, a member of the national executive of the CPI, Dr Joginder Dayal, said the Left parties, including the CPI and the CPM, did not take part in the SGPC elections as these were held to constitute a religious body that worked for disseminating tenets of the Sikh religion and the management of gurdwaras etc.

He said the CPI's line, therefore, was very clear that the SGPC elections should not be politicised.

Dr Dayal exhorted the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) that being a political party it should not participate in these elections as it contested Assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections like other political parties. The CPI believed that the SGPC elections should be contested by non-political and religious bodies only, he added.

He said to consolidate Sikh votes, the Akalis had started raising such issues, which were not in favour of the state. He said before every death anniversary of Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, Akali and Congress leaders start talking about the Longowal-Rajiv Accord though it had not been implemented either by the Congress or the NDA government at the Centre even as the SAD had also remained a part of the latter.

Dr Dayal said the CPI wanted that Chandigarh and other Punjabi speaking areas should be given to Punjab while the disputes related to river waters should be resolved through negotiations. He also asked all political parties of Punjab to come together on a platform to meet the Prime Minister for getting the construction of Hansi-Butana canal wall stopped.

Dr Dayal said that it was a matter of concern that the Congress and the SAD were running away from the real issues in front of the state like agrarian and industrial crisis, unemployment, education and health problems, while it was only the Left parties that had been raising such issues.

Bathinda, July 30
Reacting to a statement of Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal that the Congresspersons were misguiding people with regard to setting up of proposed solid waste management plant in Bathinda, the local Congress MLA Harminder Singh Jassi today said the setting up of the plant would prove fatal for the local residents as the city was already facing several problems, like thermal plant’s ash, drinking water and sewerage.

Jassi said if Harsimrat Badal was of the view that the plant would prove a boon for the city then she should get it shifted to Badal village. He asked Harsimrat Badal to tell the people how would the plant prove beneficial for the city when the solid waste of 18 municipal councils would be brought here daily through hundreds of vehicles, which would create not only traffic problems in the city but would also spread diseases and pollution.

Jassi said the setting up of the proposed plant was not only being opposed by the Congresspersons and local residents but also by the SAD’s councillors. So it was a matter of astonishment that in such circumstances, the SAD-BJP government had turned a blind eye towards the hue and cry being raised by the people against this plant.

Jassi said Harsimrat Badal was taking credit for development works in the city though many of the works, like road over bridges, had been completed with the funds provided to the state by the central government.