Navjot Sidhu urges Akal Takht to excommunicate Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir

Punjab local bodies and tourism minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on Monday urged the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of Sikhs, to excommunicate former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his son and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal for having alleged proximity with Dera Sacha Sauda and shielding its men in cases of sacrilege.

Sidhu, who was in Amritsar, went to hand over a four-page memorandum to Akal Takht jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh at the Takht secretariat seeking excommunication of the Badals. But it was the jathedar’s assistant who received the letter on his behalf. It was not clear whether the jathedar was in the Golden Temple complex at that time.

Sidhu alleged that the father-son duo violated the Takht’s 2007 ‘hukamnama’ (religious edict) to boycott the dera for blasphemy after sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim had imitated 10th Sikh master Guru Gobind Singh.

“To garner the dera’s support in the elections, the Badals continued their relations with the dera, thus defying the Takht order,” he said.

In the memorandum, he claimed that the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) played a role in the dera-Sikh conflict. He alleged the Badals engaged with the dera as part of a political deal.

“Even as the SAD-BJP ruled the state for 10 years after the dera head was booked for blasphemy, the Punjab Police failed to file any charge-sheet against him in court,” he said.

The minister said the Badals secured victory for Harsimrat Kaur Badal in the Lok Sabha polls with the secret support of the dera in 2009 and 2014.

“In 2015, the Badals secured pardon for the dera head from the Akal Takht to facilitate screening of Ram Rahim’s movie MSG-2 in Punjab. Also, peaceful Sikh protesters were fired at Behbal Kalan during their rule but the police went soft on the dera followers,” he added.

Later, interacting with the media at his residence along with Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar, Sidhu said the Badals have deceived the community. The ‘Faqr-e-quam’ award conferred by Akal Takht on Badal senior should also be taken back, he demanded.

On Badal’s statement that the Congress government is conspiring to vitiate Sikh-Hindu unity in the state, Jakhar said Punjab is not endangered by anyone except traitors of the Panth and everyone knows who they are.

First Published: Sep 14, 2018 11:31 IST