Cong MLA defends attending 'Sarbat Khalsa'

Under fire from ruling SAD-BJP combine for attending 'Sarbat Khalsa', Congress MLA from Khadoor Sahab Ramanjit Singh Sikki today defended the move, saying he went to the congregation to put forward his party's view.
'Sarbat Khalsa', congregation of Sikhs, was convened by Sikh hardliners on the outskirts of Amritsar on November 10.
"I, as a devout Sikh, do not need anybody's permission to attend a religious congregation of my community and I cannot tolerate anybody trying to interfere with what I do about my faith and religion," he said in a statement here.
Sikki had last month tendered resignation as MLA protesting against incidents of sacrilege, but his resignation was rejected by the Speaker of the Assembly on technical grounds.

The Congress legislator said, the 'Sarbat Khalsa' was open to everyone irrespective of the political party he belonged to.
"Just because the leaders belonging to the ruling Akali-BJP alliance did not have the courage to attend, does not mean those belonging to the Congress should not have attended it either," he asserted.

Referring to BJP state president Kamal Sharma's statement that he should not have attended the 'Sarbat Khalsa', Sikki maintained that he went there to put forward the Congress point of view which he did successfully.
"I made the secular stand of the party categorically clear there," he said, adding, "I also appealed for peace and communal harmony and warned that there must not be any breach of trust between different communities and castes in Punjab."

He said, "neither the Sikhs should be seen as enemies of anyone nor anybody should be seen as enemy of Sikhs, which was widely appreciated by the people".