LUDHIANA: Supporters of the detained Akali leader, Simranjit Singh Mann, keep out of campaigning for the Gidderbaha Assembly by election where a tough fight is on between the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Congress. Talking to media persons in the judicial courts complex, here last week, Mann, deplored that neither he nor his Supporters had got any invitation from the party high command for canvassing in favor of the Akali nominee. Hence, they had decided to stay away lest their presence and speeches in the constituency went against the party’s interests at the moment, He regretted that he was not taken into confidence by the party bosses in deciding the election candidate. He came down heavily on the acting Jathedar of Akal Takht, Manjit Singh, and charged him with reducing him to the position of a “laborer” under the SGPC chief, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, and the SAD president, Parkash Singh Badal. He said neither the Jathedar nor his representative and convenor of the unity panel, Ashok Singh Bagrian, consulted him neither while accepting the Anandpur Sahib resolution as the party’s goal nor while constituting the subsequent three member subcommittee. He said that “heavens would not have fallen” if his representative, S.S. Chhotepur, had also been nominated to this subcommittee to put up the case of those adhering to the Amritsar Declaration.
Regretting the foreign visit of Manjit Singh at present, he said he should have stayed back to sort out the matters at this crucial moment in Sikh history. He denied that the responsibility of the Jathedar or Bagrian in the unity process was over, saying they must intervene to uphold the supremacy of the Takht and the sanctity of its decisions.
According to Mann, traditional Akalis and the dissident Congress MP, Jagmeet Singh Brar, were behaving alike; the former had deserted the Amritsar Declaration while the latter had joined hands with the ‘Chief Minister at Gidderbaha, “Is this character?” he asked, asserting that he stood steadfast on this.
He compared his situation to the late chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, who was jailed in 1953.as the fate of that state hung in balance. “Here I am behind bars now when important decisions are being taken,” he commented, He feared that some third force was at work because vital decisions like backtracking on the Amritsar Declaration were being taken in his absence and there was a conspiracy that he continues to Tanguish in jail.
Mann termed the waiving off of the Rs 6.500 crore security debts by the Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, during his Punjab visit as his reward for Beant Singh for “eliminating” 1.1 lakh youths.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 12, 1995
