Won't tolerate HSGPC's efforts to wrest control of Gurdwaras: Sukhbir Singh Badal

AMRITSAR: With the ad-hoc Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee moving ahead to take control of Gurdwaras in the Congress ruled state, Sukhbir Singh Badal today said Bhupinder Hooda government's efforts to wrest control of the shrines would not be tolerated at any cost.

Badal has asked the Centre to take suitable steps to prevent the atmosphere from vitiating further as the Haryana SGPC leaders, he said, are allegedly issuing statements of dire consequences if Amritsar-based SGPC fails to vacate the shrines in Haryana.

The Amritsar-based SGPC here still holds control of the Gurudwaras in Haryana.

On Thursday, the executive committee of the HSGPC held its meeting held at Kaithal, Haryana, where the committee's senior leader Jagdish Singh Jhinda warned that the Sikh community of Haryana will not tolerate "forcible occupation of the gurudwaras and would not mind taking any step to get the shrines evacuated."

"The Congress-sponsored provocation is self-indicative of the fact that these dejected Haryana based Sikh leaders believe in confrontation and want to disrupt the peace and tranquillity in the Sikh shrines of Haryana," deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal said.

Badal said that SGPC was constituted after the enormous sacrifices made by Sikhs during the British rule, but the "Congress was bent upon weakening this august religious body".