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Haryana says it’ll have own SGPC on Nov 1
WSN Network
 CHANDIGARH:
In a move guranteed to raise the hackles of the established Akali
Dal leadership and the SGPC, Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh
Hooda has said a separate SGPC for Haryana will be formed on
November 1 if there was no legal hitch. Just as the move was
designed to provoke, the Akali Dal led by Prakash Singh Badal cried
foul loudly, the SGPC condemned the move and calls went out to no
less than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to stop such a step or face
drastic action by the Sikh community.
The SGPC has
rushed to call an emergency meetinf of its executive on August 10
and a meeting of the General House on August 14. Chief Minister
Prakash Singh Badal rushed to meet the PM while more visible
agitational approach is likely to hog headlines after Sukhbir Singh
Badal joins government.
Even though most
people expect that the election code of conduct will come into force
much before November 1 since the Hooda government is widely known to
be preparing to ask the Election Commission to conduct early polls,
the separate SGPC has indeed found support from some fringe Akali
factions.
Apart from a
section of the Sikhs in Haryana, factions led by Paramjit Singh
Sarna, president of DSGMC and Ravi Inder Singh seemed to be backing
the move. But what is important is the implication that the talk
about separate SGPC will have on electoral fortunes of Congress in
Haryana in the coming Assembly elections and Akali Dal's in the
upcoming SGPC polls.
Hooda seems to
be trying to woo the Sikh community ahead of expected early Assembly
elections and a panel set up by him under H S Chatha, had
recommended for a separate SGPC.
"The Chatha
Committee report is being legally examined by a committee in view of
the aspirations of the Sikh community," Hooda said in the Assembly
last week. The polls in Haryana are due in February 2010, but the
Congress has more or less made up its mind to hold them in October
this year.
Incidentally,
the Congress did promise a separate SGPC for Haryana in its
manifesto for the 2005 Assembly elections, but after Prakash Singh
Badal, Avtar Singh Makkar and other Akali leaders reached out to
Prime Minister and it was feared that the reaction to such a move
will be very sharp, the Congress dithered on it.
Opinion over
setting up of separate SGPC is divided and while most Sikhs in
Punjab do not want such a move, there is certainly a section of the
Sikhs in Haryana which is backing the move. The fact is that the
fight is over a skew in the way the SGPC resources are being spent
and many people think that gurdwaras outside Punjab are
discriminated against.
The larger
solution lies in the All India Gurdwara Act and reforms within the
SGPC, including those at the fiscal front and the democratic
functioning of the religious body, but such areas are reciving scant
attention while the issue of separate SGPC in Haryana got hyped up
and is now at the centre stage.
It is possible
that the Badals may be actually interested in turning the separate
SGPC into a highly emotional issue and may try to win back the
panthic core vote bank by claiming that only their Akali Dal can put
a stop to this.
5
August 2009
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