JALANDHAR: The Badal and Amritsar factions of the Akalis, have formally merged their identities to form the reconstituted Shiromani Akali Dal with Parkash Singh Badal as its president.
This announcement was made by the three-member subcommittee of the nine-member unity panel with Ashok Singh Bagarian as its convener and the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president, Gurcharan Singh Tohra, and Kuldip Singh Wadala as members.
The sub-committee will shortly meet again to announce the rest of the organizational set up and finalize any remaining issues. If case of any problem, the sub-committee would refer the matter to the nine-member unity panel, Tohra said. The exercise would be completed within the next 10 days.
In the meanwhile, Bagarian would again meet the detained Akali lcader, Simranjit Singh Mann, to persuade him to join the unified set-up of the party
Welcoming the reported statement of Mann from Ropar extending full support to the decisions of the nine members panel, the committee members said that it would be more helpful and cooperative, if Mann agreed to join the organizational set-up of the party.
To repeated questions regarding the role of Badal in naming the working committee, Tohra clarified that Badal had given every right to choose his representative in the sub-committee, Kuldeep Singh Wadala.
Badal would, however, look after all party matters, they said. When the attention of the subcommittee was drawn towards the statement of Sucha Singh Chhotepur, representative of Mann, on the nine-member ad hoe committee that he would not attend any future meeting of the unity panel, they said, “we weigh more the statement of Mann joining the unity process.”
The Akali unity process was initiated on Vaisakhi day last year at Talwandi Sabo on the culmination of the Khalsa March.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 28, 1995
