LUDHIANA: The president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) Parkash Singh Badal, on Tuesday warned the government against banning the February 2 Ludhiana rally of six Panthic groups or arresting their leaders to thwart their pol boycott decision.

Talking to newsmen here on Tuesday, Badal asserted that any such step taken by the government would only convince the people of their boycott decision. He asked a why would the government take such a step now when it did not initiate any action against the Congressmen who had boycotted the cancelled Punjab elections of June last. He reminded the government that in 1989, the people voted Simranjit Singh Mann and other leaders supported by him to power with overwhelming majority though Mann was behind the bars and any curbs imposed now would also draw a similar response from the people in favour of the boycott.

Badal was here along with the president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Mann), Simranjit Singh Mann, the president of the Shiromani Babbar Akali Dal, Kartar Singh Narang, Captain Harcharan Singh Rode of SAD (Baba), Sarabjit Singh Jammu, _general secretary of the All India Sikh Students Federation (Manjit) and Sukhbir Singh Khalsa, senior vice president of Sikh Students Federation (Mehta) to address a joint workers meeting of their groups in preparation of the proposed Ludhiana rally.

Badal condemned the arrest of three Bharatiya Kisan Union leaders by the police at Ludhiana on Monday. He said this showed that there was no democracy in the state. He denied that there was any contact between him and the Center either before announcing the poll boycott or after it. Supporting the demand raised by the Punjab Governor, Surendra Nath for the state’s share in Yamuna river waters, he termed it as Punjab’s right which must be restored tit

Earlier, addressing the workers meeting, Badal claimed that already the common poll boycott decision had uncovered the Central government and forced it t0 postpone the issuing of the poll notification by five days. He observed that if the remaining Akali groups and other political parties back their boycott decision, the Center would not lose any time to accept the demands of Punjab and solve the lingering Punjab problem. He said the six Panthic groups preferred to lose a chance to come to power by contesting the elections and opted to continue their struggle for the demands of Punjab.

Badal asked the Akali and federation workers to persuade village panchayat and associations

of lawyers, teachers, employees and other sections of the society to pass resolutions endorsing the poll boycott decision and stay away from voting. He urged party men that this required as much field work as that of actually contesting the elections. He pointed to workers of different groups to splay only saffron flags while moving about in public to show their unity. He said the Bharatiya Kisan Union and other groups would also be associated with the poll boycott decision and the rallies to be held in Ludhiana and all district headquarters. He thanked the Republican Party and the: Samajwadi Janata Party for deciding to boycott the poll.

Simranjit Singh Mann disclosed that in preparation for the: Ludhiana rally workers in neighboring districts would be actively associated. He said a workers meeting would be held at Sangrur on Jan.29  at Patiala on Jan30and Jalandhar on Jan.31 which would also be attended by top leaders of four Akali Dals and two students federations to mobilize people for the Ludhiana rally Mann justified the boycott decision saying the slate was experiencing unabated sate repression and youths were being eliminated in fake encounters. He said all prime ministers of India, whether late Rajiv Gandhi, VP Singh and P.V. Narasimha Rao had played tricks with Punjab and failed to keep their assurances with Punjabis.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (Mann), he said would also hold a Joint rally with the All India Sikh Students Federation (Manjit) and the Sikh Students Federation (Mehta) at Srinagar on Jan.26 to protest against the “Ekta Yatra of: the BIP chief, Murli Manohar Joshi.

Article extracted from this publication >> January 31, 1992