As the Parliament on Monday passed the Bill barring Sehajdhari Sikhs from voting in the Gurdwara management polls, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has moved a step closer towards implementing its panthic agenda ahead 2017 State Assembly elections.
Besides, the Akali Dal is likely to have a stronger hold over the politics of Shiromani Gurdwara Management Committee (SGPC), known as the Sikhs’ mini parliament, that would eventually help it to preach its policies and agenda among the voters and woo them in its favour via gurudwaras under its jurisdiction.
The Sikh Gurdwaras (Amendment) Bill, 2016, passed by the lok Sabha on Monday, is also expected to have a bearing on the SGPC’s functioning. The Bill has already been approved by the Rajya Sabha, is expected to receive the President’s
nod before attaining the status of an Act.
With the final go-ahead expected soon, the functioning of the SGPC will be smooth as its general body stands inactive since 2011 over the voting-rights issue. The development is significant as the SGPC elected members would now be able to elect its new executive body, including the president.
While the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has raised objections to the Bill, the Akali Dal has described the passage of Bill “a victory for SAD and the Sikh community”.
The development has added another achievement for the SAD’s panthic agenda, it has adopted with an eye on state assembly polls, scheduled to be held in February next year.
SAD decided to went back on its panthic agenda virtually to divert the voters’ attention from the major issues, including farmers’ woes and rise in their suicide incidents, drug menace, deteriorating law and order, among others.
Its panthic agenda suffered a setback when Sikh clergy’s decision, orchestrated by Akali Dal, to pardon Dera Sacha Sauda sect head Gurmeet Ram Rahim boomeranged, coupled with the series ‘bir’ sacrilege incidents.
linking the passage of the amendment bill as a “historical day in Sikh history”, Union Minister and SAD MP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal said that both Houses of the Parliament had “righted a wrong” by passing this amendment and respected the sentiments of the Sikh community on this sensitive issue.
Castigating the Congress and AAP for opposing this bill in the lower house through its MPs Choudhary Santokh Singh, Ravneet Singh Bittu and Bhagwant Singh Maan, Harsimrat said: “The manner in which both parties have collaborated with each other to make a counter strategy against the SAD is reflective of the strategy adopted by them in Bihar.”
Congress, on the other hand, alleged SAD and BJP-led Central Government of arranging the passage of this Bill “just to benefit the SAD-BJP ruling regime in the 2017 polls”.
“Akalis have the stronghold over the Gurudwaras through which it preaches its policies and agenda too, and tried to woo voters in its favour. If Sehajdharis were including in the House, they would lose their stronghold and the role of gurudwaras in elections would be limited…But now, they would use the religious bodies for their political gains as always,” a senior Congress leader told The Pioneer.
SAD is maintaining its monopoly over the SGPC — a statutory body elected for managing affairs of major historic Sikh Gurudwaras in Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Himachal Pardesh.
Going into the background, the right to amend the Sikh Gurdwara Act, 1925, vests in the Parliament, since the reorganisation of Punjab, with the SGPC becoming inter-state body corporate.
With an amendment to the Act in 1959 in the Punjab Assembly, the voting rights were given to the Sehajdharis. They were later barred from voting rights via notification dated October 8, 2003. The decision was struck down in 2011 by the Punjab and Haryana High Court on a petition by the Sehajdhari Sikh Federation (SSF), giving voting rights to the Sehajdharis.
Union Home Ministry had debarred the Sehajdharis from voting rights in the general election through executive order in 2011 that had been challenged. The amendment was made only by way of a notification and the law was required to be passed through Parliament.
The Supreme Court had later stayed the functioning of SGPC general house till the pendency of the case.
SAD has now sought the amendment in the Bill, following which the Union Cabinet had decided to approve the debarment with effect from 2003. Following the President’s nod, the matter is expected to go to the Apex Court for reversing its orders of freezing the SGPC general body elected in the 2011.