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Badal asks Centre ‘not to meddle’ in Sikh affairs

Patiala: Asking the Centre “not to meddle” in Sikh affairs, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday said his party Shiromani Akali Dal has called for a meeting of its core committee against the disbanding of SGPC and formation of separate body for Sikh shrines by the Haryana government.

He said it was Centre’s duty not to create another controversy like the Amarnath land row in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr. Badal said since the issue was a matter of concern, SAD has called a meeting of the party’s core committee on Tuesday at Chandigarh to chalk out future strategy and will also approach the MPs of NDA also.

Talking to reporters at Rajla village, 40 kms from here, he alleged that the Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh both were instrumental in the division of SGPC and has proposed the separate management committee for historic gurdwaras in Haryana.

Asking the Centre not to meddle in Sikh affairs, he said it should prevent the Haryana government from making a separate body for Sikh shrines.

Ludhiana: The Congress party has taken serious note of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s statement, in which he had accused the Central government of meting out step-motherly treatment to states being ruled by Opposition parties.

In a rebuttal to Badal’s “false accusations”, AICC spokesman and secretary Manish Tewari on Sunday said it was during the Vajpayee Government regime, in which Shiromani Akali Dal MP Sukhbir Singh Badal was a Minister, that no help was ever given to Punjab by the Union Government because Congress was in power in the State.

“Rather obstructions were created by the Vajyapee Government to ensure that Punjab did not get anything,” he alleged.

Claiming that the UPA Government has never adopted a discriminatory approach towards states being ruled by parties other than the Congress, Mr. Tewari said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has always looked at all states in the same way, irrespective of which party is at the helm of affairs. “The Finance Minister gives grants to Punjab Agricultural University, because PAU acts as a nodal institution for agricultural related research and other works,” he said. -- PTI

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