Badal opposes creation of separate SGPC in Haryana

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today strongly opposed the creation of a separate Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee in Haryana and urged the Centre to stop the move initiated by the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government terming it as "interference" in Sikh affairs.
Badal, who led a delegation of Punjab MPs to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, also raised the issue of Sehajdari Sikhs and asked the Centre to replace the Home Ministry notification by a law for giving procedural correction to remove technical infirmities in the Centre's directive.
He alleged that the Congress government in Haryana was taking the initiative with an eye on the forthcoming Assembly elections and the Centre must ensure by enacting a law that SGPC remains the only organisation to look after the religious affairs of Sikhs.

"The entire Sikh community is upset with the Hooda government's move. It is unlawful. Even people of Haryana rejected the Congress nominees in SGPC polls. All their 11 candidates lost the last SGPC polls. We have asked the central government to stop Haryana's move," he told reporters after meeting the Home Minister.
"The issue concerns the dangerous attempts by the present government in Haryana to interfere in the religious affairs of the Sikhs through a desperate bid to set up a separate body for the management of Sikh shrines in that state.
"The attempt is aimed at weakening the religious strength of the Sikh community by dividing and diluting their sole and supreme elected religious institution, the SGPC, also known as the 'religious parliament of the Sikhs," the memorandum submitted by him said, adding that the SGPC, apart from the elected members from the present Punjab and Haryana, has 17 members nominated from different parts of the country providing adequate representation to Sikhs.

Badal said even though the previous Congress-led UPA government had dissuaded Hooda from going ahead with a separate SGPC, he did not pay heed to it.
"The unwise and dangerous move, which can have implications for peace, has still not been abandoned," he said.