Accusing Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of making brazen attempts to usurp control of sacred Sikh institutions through the back door, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Friday said that no interference in the religious affairs of the Sikhs will be tolerated.
Badal said Mann is walking the path of several anti Sikh tyrants and their stooges in the past who tried to brow beat the Khalsa Panth and its sacred religious institutions.
“Having failed to brow beat the Khalsa Panth on the issue of telecast of Gurbani, Bhagwant Mann is now resorting to cheap tricks and conspiracies to disrupt the smooth seva being performed by the SGPC (Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee) and its sevadars and employees for over a century now,” he said.
The SAD chief said the CM has lowered the dignity of his office so pathetically that he is now stooping even to incite and sponsor employees of the most sacred Sikh Gurdham , Sach Khand Sri Harmandar Sahib, and going out of his way to register a union which he has himself sponsored by misleading a fragment of the employees of the SGPC.
“This is just a continuation of the old policy of divide and rule against the Sikhs quom (community),” he added.
Badal said this government sponsored union “is Bhagwant Mann’s latest and desperate act of shameless interference in the affairs of a religion of which he does not observe even the basic norms.”
The SAD chief said since becoming the CM, Bhagwant Mann has remained obsessed with interfering in Sikh religious affairs and trying to weaken the established Sikh traditions and institutions.
“He or the Punjab government have no locus standi in recommending amendments to the Anand Marriage Act and yet he tried to hurriedly to poke his nose into it in a failed bid to tweak it at the bidding of his non-Sikh and anti-Sikh bosses in Delhi. These amendments can be made only on the recommendations of the elected religious representatives,” he added.
Badal said SAD as the representative of the religious sentiments of the Khalsa Panth will launch statewide protests on Monday and burn CM’s effigies at district headquarters to highlight and oppose his and his government’s “illegitimate meddling in the religious affairs of the Khalsa Panth.”
He said a delegation of the party will call on the Punjab Governor on Saturday to also take up the issue with him to urge him to stop the CM from “pursuing this disastrous course of confrontation with the Khalsa Panth and put an end to persistent meddling in Sikh religious affairs.”