Conspiracy to weaken community: Akal Takht on separate Haryana SGPC

CHANDIGARH: Opposing the demand for a separate SGPC for Haryana, the Akal Takht termed the move as "politically-motivated" and a "conspiracy" to weaken the Sikh community.

"It is a conspiracy to weaken the Sikhs. The Sikhs should understand this and oppose any such move tooth and nail and not fall into this trap. The move will disturb the peace," Akal Takht Jathedar, Giani Gurbachan Singh told PTI over phone today.

"It is really unfortunate that some Sikhs, who are hungry for political power, have joined hands with the Congress to weaken the SGPC and divide the Sikhs," Singh alleged.

"Those (Haryana Sikh leaders) demanding a separate body lost the SGPC polls in 2011," he said.

The Jathedar of Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs, when asked about the claims of ruling Congress in Haryana that over a couple of lakh of affidavits have been received from the Sikhs of the state, favouring forming of a separate SGPC, said, "It is not a demand of the Sikh masses in Haryana, but of a handful of people in the state with a political motive."

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda is scheduled to attend a Sikh sammelan being organised in Kaithal on July 6 by the Sikh leaders who are demanding a separate panel for their gurudwaras.

The issue of carving out separate SGPC was a poll promise made by the Congress in 2005, but not settled in the first term of the Hooda government. The issue remained alive in Hooda's second term from 2009 and is now again at the forefront when Haryana goes to polls in October this year.

Singh said the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), apex religious body of the Sikhs, had always been at the forefront of Sikh issues in Haryana.

Refuting the allegations levelled by some Haryana Sikh leaders including Jagdish Singh Jhinda that Amritsar-based SGPC takes away the entire donation received in gurdwaras of the state to Punjab, he said "This is not correct.

The SGPC is concerned and works for the welfare of the Sikhs in Haryana. The SGPC runs a number of schools and colleges in Haryana. It also had plans to start a medical college near Kurukshetra, but the Haryana government is not giving NOC (clearance) on one pretext or the other for long".