AMRITSAR: S.G.P.C, President Gurcharan Singh Tohra appears to be emerging as the key figure in behind the scenes efforts to unite on one platform all Akali factions in Punjab.

Tohra belongs to the Badal group of Akalis and as an immediate offshoot of the development, he is encountering some opposition from none else than Parkash Singh Badal. The S.G.P.C. chief had a meeting recently with Simranjit Singh Mann. Later Mann said that Later Mann significantly said that he was merely a foot soldier of the $.G.P.C. This indicated Mann’s willingness to come to terms with the Badal faction provided the unified group is headed by Tohra.

Not long ago, Mann was at daggers drawn with Tohra whom he blamed for conniving the killing of one of his group’s activists, Lang, This refrain was later picked up by the chief minister Beant Singh who alleged that the Lang murder case was being investigated with the Tohra angle in mind.

The S.G.P.C. chief last week obtained bail against arrest from the high court for the states of Punjab and Haryana. In the event of Mann finally giving his consent to Tohra heading the new setup, other small groups like the Babbar Akali Dal, the Baba Akali Dal and groups of student’s federations could be brought round, according to circles close to Tohra. The main hitch appears to be Badal who is said to be not kindly disposed to the proposal. He seems to be working against the idea and his talks with A.LS.S.F. Headed by Manjit Singh are linked to that. The Manjit group recently asserted that its merger with the Badal group was round the comer. But the two groups held separate conferences at Damdama Saheb on the Baisakhi festival.

Significantly, the Manjit group in a resolution totally rejected the Rajiv Longowal accord. It asked the Akali groups still harping about the accord to give up their anti-Sikh policies. The group demanded royalty for the water supplied to neighboring states. The public response to the separate conferences held at Damdama Saheb showed that the groups: headed by Mann, Badaland Manjit evoked fairly good response while the one headed by Baba Dal and Babbar Akali Dal could not attract many Sikhs.

A common feature of the conferences was the demand for dismissal of the Beant Singh government dubbed as unrepresentative. For the first time after a decade the Congress (1) too organized a conference which was attended by a few hundred persons mostly belonging to security forces.

Article extracted from this publication >>  April 16, 1993