Religious appointment row: SAD unhappy with Centre, calls BJP-led government 'arrogant'

NEW DELHI: Coalition partners BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal have resumed their quarrel after a lull. While Punjab CM Parkrash Singh Badal did not spare home minister Rajnath Singh the blushes over a religious appointment, during a recent public function, party MP Naresh Gujral added fuel to the fire by telling ET that BJP was arrogant and suffered from talent deficit.

The uneasy relationship seemed to have prompted BJP president Amit Shah to convert a single-day rally against drug menace in Punjab into a padyatra. "I will be announcing the programme soon, it will be a kind of padyatra," he said at a news conference on Thursday.

Badal, in his speech at the north zone conference, made very specific and aggressive recounting of his grouses against the BJP-led government at the Centre. Badal told Rajnath Singh that the appointment of BJP MLA and RSS activist Tara Singh as chief of the Takht Sri Hazur Sahib Management Board was direct interference by BJP in Sikh affairs.

"The Maharashtra government should have consulted the SGPC, the apex elected body of the Sikhs for religious affairs, before appointing Tara Singh," Badal reportedly said.

He also accused the BJP-led Maharashtra government of increasing board members from 17 to 21, but reduced the representation of SGPC and chief Khalsa Dewan in it. This was a violation of the pact between the late Master Tara Singh and Nehru which stated that there could be no interference in Sikh institutions without consulting the SGPC.

Taking off from this point, Gujral said that there was no consultation with allies before the promulgation of the land ordinance, which he said should not have happened. "Punjab is a state where agriculture is a very sensitive issue," he added.