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Eight years after the anger over sacrilege incidents involving the Guru Granth Sahib contributed to the defeat of the Akali Dal authorities, adopted by a precipitous decline in its numbers, social gathering president Sukhbir Singh Badal Friday publicly apologised for the primary time for failing to arrest the culprits.
Badal SHARED A WRITTEN apology and posted a video READING ALOUD THE SAME whereas addressing a gathering at Gurdwara Shaheed Baba Gurbaksh Singh in Amritsar, on the 103rd basis day of the Akali Dal.
After a latest SIT report virtually cleared the Akali Dal for the incidents, which noticed torn pages of the Guru Granth Sahib being present in 2015, resulting in violence, Badal’s apology is seen as a closing try by him to place the chapter lastly behind him and the social gathering.
The Akali Dal’s political place has solely worsened since 2015, having suffered two successive Meeting ballot losses – first to the Congress in 2017, and the AAP in 2022 – and having gained little from its determined resolution to half methods with long-time ally BJP over the contested farm legal guidelines.
In final 12 months’s Meeting elections, the social gathering bought solely three seats.
Earlier this 12 months, in an additional blow, the Akali Dal misplaced Parkash Singh Badal, the social gathering’s greatest mascot and the state’s tallest chief.
In his apology, Sukhbir was extreme on himself and the social gathering: “Submitting myself to the Guru’s will within the precinct of Sri Akal Takht Sahib, the very best religio-temporal seat of the Sikh quom (neighborhood), I sincerely and unconditionally search forgiveness of the Khalsa Panth for that heinous act of sacrilege of Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji that occurred throughout the Akali govt. I additionally apologize that we couldn’t apprehend and punish the culprits throughout the transient remaining a part of our tenure. I’m very unhappy that we couldn’t perceive and defeat the conspiracies of some so-called Panthic people and organisations and allowed them to compel us handy over the probe to the CBI. These incidents stay probably the most painful occasions in my life and the lifetime of S Parkash Singh Ji Badal.”
Thursday’s apology was maybe the one recourse left for Sukhbir to restore the social gathering’s notion among the many Sikh neighborhood, and to enhance its possibilities earlier than the Lok Sabha elections.
One other electoral loss will go away Sukhbir’s place within the social gathering even shakier. A number of leaders have overtly questioned the truth that the social gathering has seen no shake-up regardless of the ballot setbacks, with senior names equivalent to former SGPC president Bibi Jagir Kaur quitting citing the shortage of “reforms” within the Akali Dal construction.
Paradoxically, Sukhbir was offered this “opening” by a shock resolution by the AAP authorities led by Bhagwant Mann final 12 months to make public the SIT report into the 2015 sacrilege circumstances – handing over the identical to Damdami Taksal Ajnala faction head Amrik Singh Ajnala, who enjoys good relations with the AAP.
The SIT report held that the Akali Dal had no direct position within the 2015 sacrilege incidents, and made virtually no point out of then-Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal after which Deputy CM Sukhbir.
The Akali Dal rapidly dubbed it a clear chit to its high management – Sukhbir’s apology Thursday was extra of an acknowledgment of “administrative failures”.
The Congress and AAP, in addition to different events and Sikh our bodies, have continually attacked the Akali Dal authorities over the incidents, accusing it of “failure” to verify them or to punish the responsible.
Nonetheless, on one facet, the Akali Dal continues to be on the again foot. The SIT report blamed Dera Sirsa, led by the controversial Gurmeet Ram Rahim, for what had occurred, and through its 10-year stint in energy ending in 2017, the Akali Dal was seen to have favoured and helped the Dera Sirsa develop.
Whereas a case was registered towards Gurmeet Ram Rahim in 2007, simply after the Akali Dal-BJP authorities got here to energy, for hurting Sikh sentiments, with the Akal Takht even ex-communicating him, this was quashed after the Punjab Police itself filed contradictory affidavits, weakening its case.
The Akali Dal management was additionally accused of utilizing the SGPC, which it controls, to make then Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Gurbachan Singh challenge a pardon in 2015 to Gurmeet Ram Rahim within the 2007 case and revoke his excommunication simply earlier than the discharge of a film that includes him.
By then, the primary of the sacrilege incidents had already occurred. Then got here the 2017 Meeting elections, the place Dera Sirsa overtly supported the Akali Dal.
In 2018, beneath the Congress authorities, a police investigation discovered Dera Sirsa to be concerned within the sacrilege incidents.
The taint of its affiliation with the Dera has been laborious for the Akali Dal to brush off.
Now, aside from the Lok Sabha polls, the approaching SGPC elections may also be on the Akali Dal’s thoughts. Its maintain on the Panthic house has come beneath stress for the reason that extra hardline Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) gained the Sangrur parliamentary seat bypoll held final 12 months.
The Akali Dal will probably be dependent greater than ever on the Sikh vote in 2024 as these will probably be its first Lok Sabha polls with out the BJP, which drew the Hindus to the alliance. Whereas the 2 events have been making noises about coming again collectively, the BJP could also be in no temper to oblige its former companion now, given its latest Hindi heartland state ballot successes.
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