Gurdwara panel row: Badal, Hooda in no mood to budge - Hindustan Times
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Gurdwara panel row: Badal, Hooda in no mood to budge

Hindustan Times | By, Chandigarh
Jul 25, 2014 08:57 AM IST

Sticking to their guns on the contentious formation of the Haryana gurdwara panel, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Haryana counterpart Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Wednesday blamed each other for exploiting the issue for political gains.

Sticking to their guns on the contentious formation of the Haryana gurdwara panel, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Haryana counterpart Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Wednesday blamed each other for exploiting the issue for political gains.

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In separate interviews to Hindustan Times, both state heads stoutly defended their diametrically opposite stands on the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (HSGMC) that has pitch-forked the Centre into a tense constitutional stand-off with Haryana.

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“There is no question of a re-think or backing down (on the HSGMC Act),” Hooda said, soon after he signed a file on the constitution of the 41-member ad hoc HSGMC to manage 55-odd gurdwaras in the state.

Badal, on his part, swore by his resolve to scuttle the HSGMC and hinted that he may even step down as chief minister to lead an agitation, the contours of which would be decided at the Panthic congregation in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar on July 27.

Faced with intransigent Congress CM Hooda, the Centre is hinging its next move on a change of guard at the Haryana Raj Bhawan as the term of incumbent Jagannath Pahadia, who stamped the controversial bill into an act, ends on July 26. The NDA-appointee governor may be amenable to withdrawing assent.

But, Hooda appears to be unfazed over the Centre’s loaded overtures to make Haryana fall in line.

“No matter who is at the Raj Bhawan, the Union government can’t touch the act passed by an elected House,” he asserted.

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  • ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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    A journalist of over 35 years standing, Ramesh Vinayak is Executive Editor of Hindustan Times at Chandigarh He specialises in covering the north Indian territory of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, besides the Punjabi diaspora.

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