Fear of Sukhbir paying political cost as ‘tankha’ at centre of panthic turmoil

Jalandhar: Apprehensions in Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s camp of him likely to pay a political cost as part of the “tankha” (religious punishment) to be pronounced on him by the Sikh high priests is at the centre of the turmoil in the Sikh religio-political space.
The unease has been the central point of former SAD leader Virsa Singh Valtoha’s arguments as he sought to defend his audacious questioning of Sikh high priests by alleging RSS-BJP pressure on them and specifically targeting Takht Damdama Sahib Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh.
In his Facebook post on Oct 12 that questioned the credibility and fairness of the Sikh high priests and every time he has spoken up since then, Valtoha has been emphasising that Sukhbir should be given the hardest “religious punishment”. This repeated stress on “religious punishment” along with his allegation that RSS-BJP were building pressure on Jathedars to render Akali Dal “leaderless” imply that there should be no political component when jathedars would pronounce “tankha” on Sukhbir.
Following Valtoha’s acerbic salvos, Takht Damdama Sahib Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh on Wednesday resigned, triggering a strong reaction in the community, and in a damage control exercise, SGPC on Thursday rejected his resignation.
Several Sikh quarters have been emphasising that “tankha” in Sukhbir’s case should not be just religious service but have political component/cost too as he is “guilty” of gross Panthic-political misconduct and not just personal religious misconduct. What makes Sikh high priests’ job tough and tricky is that their decision should be acceptable to the larger Sikh community, especially after their pronouncement of Aug 30 through which they declared him a ‘tankhaiya’ (guilty) and used expressions like “causing major damage to Sikh interests, image and badly weakening of Akali Dal”, with “some decisions” and “crimes”.
When SAD secretary Daljit Singh Cheema, after meeting Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh at Amritsar along with party’s working president Balwinder Singh Bhundar, argued that conspiracies were on to get the Akali Dal derecognised, he hinted that a decision by Akal Takht on religious punishment with political component could lead to such a situation. He also cited the Constitution and Representation of Peoples Act that no party could seek directions from religion and a party should be secular and violation could lead to de-registration of the party. “Our detractors want that this should happen and then they would go and tell Delhiwallahs (BJP-led central govt) that now they should further pursue the matter with EC and get the Akali Dal derecognised,” he said.