LUDHIANA: The president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) , ‘Gurcharan Singh Tohra, recently challenged the president of the Akali Dal (Amritsar) Simranjit Singh Mann and the former jathedar of Akal Takht Prof. Darshan Singh to contest the ensuing SGPC general elections against him from any two seats. Talking to media persons, Tohra Said if he was defeated by either of them from any seat, he will quit politics, He was reacting in the statements of these two leaders to the effect that they shall contest for SGPC president ship against him.

Tohra alleged that Mann and Darshan Singh were misleading the people by giving highly inflated figures of SGPC budget so as to lure them into forthcoming elections. “What quality of membership can we expect from such people?” he asked. The SGPC Chief, who has been occupying the supremo post for over two decades, alleged that the Akali Dal (Amritsar) and the Akali Dal (Panthic), founded by Darshan Singh were cheating the Sikhs as they were backing a Congress supported government at the Center. Ridiculing the claim of Darshan Singh to reform gurdwaras, Tohra said when he was jathedar, he could not control his son from boozing. Similarly, he accused the former jathedar of perfuming holy kirtan after getting hefty amounts from the devotees.

Further, he said, Darshan Singh and another former Akal Takht jathedar Jasbir Singh Rode had not so far returned the official cars provided to them by SGPC. He said the former was provided a Contessa car on special request. Tohra revealed that the SGPC has prepared a white paper on the trauma of Punjab with 1984, as cutoff date and said it shall be released shortly. He said during the SGPC elections, his endeavor would be to facilitate election of most of the members unanimously and without involving contest. “This would help election of better people who would otherwise not like to enter the fray,” he opined adding that names of sincere and honest Sikhs, who have excelled in different walks of life were being collected so as to project them as consensus candidates of the community. He clarified that the SGPC had only a development budget of Rs 7 crore a year which had been distributed among seven heads such as dharam prachar, education, Sikh museum etc. and every paise of it was accounted for.

Article extracted from this publication >>  July 10, 1996