INS charges Badal with interference

The International Namdhari Sangat (INS) has charged chief minister Parkash Singh Badal with “interfering” in the internal matters of Namdharis. It has also refused to accept Thakur Udai Singh as next Satguru of the sect after the passing away of Satguru Jagjit Singh.

The International Namdhari Sangat (INS) has charged chief minister Parkash Singh Badal with “interfering” in the internal matters of Namdharis. It has also refused to accept Thakur Udai Singh as next Satguru of the sect after the passing away of Satguru Jagjit Singh.

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The INS is upset over the imposition of prohibitory orders in Bhaini Sahib to keep away the loyalists of the elder nephew of Satguru Jagjit Singh, Thakur Dalip Singh, who had declined to accept the “gaddi” (throne) in Sirsa on Friday and named Satguru’s widow, Mata Chand Kaur, as his successor.

“I got a call from the police that all office-bearers of the INS should stay away from Bhaini Sahib on Sunday,” said the INS chairman, Jaswinder Singh. “It is unfortunate that Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (prohibitory orders) was imposed in Bhaini Sahib for the first time since the British imperial rule, that too in the tenure of the Shiromani Akali Dal regime.”

Gurmail Singh, another member of the INS, took on chief minister Badal. “He has asked the Congress not to interfere in the religious affairs of Sikhs, but he interferes in the internal matters of Namdharis. Badal should not instruct the administration to bar certain followers from entering the Namdhari headquarters.”