CHANDIGARH: The Akali Dal (Badal) has decided to oppose Mr, Gureharan Singh Tohra in the forthcoming election this month to the president ship of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in an effort to free the Gurdwaras from the corrupt coterie.
Addressing a news conference here, the party president, Mr. Parkash Singh Badal, on Nov. While launching a scathing attack ‘on the SGPC functioning under Mr, Tohra, said that his party, the Akali Dal (Badal) was yet to find a suitable person to oppose his longtime political friend turned foe, He said his party would go to the extent of extending support to a candidate even from Akali Dal (Amritsar) to dislodge Mr. Tohra. He appealed for conscience vote.
Mr. Badal said the forthcoming SGPC office bearer’s election had assumed great significance not in terms of victory or defeat but in terms of focusing attention on the mismanagement of the ‘gurdwaras, malfunctioning of the SGPC and its politicization for the perpetuation of vested interests.
When asked as to why he did not see any corruption in the SGPC all these years so long Mr. Tohra was in his company, an embarrassed Mr. Badal tried to justify his silence saying party compulsions came in his way.
‘The former chief minister alleged that Mr. Tohra and his small power hungry coterie had appropriated this Panthic organization, depriving it of its representative character and deflecting it from its objectives of better administration of the gurdwaras and propagation of the Sikh faith: The Sikh mind was agitated over the misuse of gurdwara funds which were being recklessly spent on self-seeking sectarian, politically vested interests for political pursuits. He lamented that with crores of rupees at its disposal, the SGPC could have transformed the very destiny of the Sikhs.
He said his party had veered round to the view that the Sikh community was now faced with its moment of truth when it would have to ponder over the direction that it has to take both in political as well religious spheres.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 11, 1994
