In his maiden public address after being declared a tankhaiya (person guilty of religious misconduct) by the Akal Takht on August 30 last year, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal said that he had accepted edict of the clergy to end the “political blame game” against the Badal family that had been going on for years.
Sukhbir had been maintaining a low profile ever since the Akal Takht declared him a tankhaiya for the mistakes committed during the SAD regime in Punjab between 2007 and 2017.
Addressing party workers in Muktsar on Monday to consolidate support for a political conference during the annual Maghi mela on January 14, Sukhbir said certain powers were working to “weaken the SAD” and trying to malign the Badal family’s “rich political legacy” by making “false sacrilege” allegations.
“All these allegations were false, but I took all the blame in my ‘jholi’. I was not even around (in Punjab when the incidents of sacrilege and firing on Sikh protesters took place),” said Sukhbir, who was then the state home minister.
“SAD is the only party that bows before the Akal Takht. The highest temporal institute of Akal Takht is the supreme authority for the Akalis and we have high regard for it,” he added.
Before the Sikh clergy pronounced the tankhah (religious punishment) on December 2, Sukhbir had admitted to the mistakes, including pardoning of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a 2007 blasphemy case, when the SAD was in power. As part of the punishment, the clergy had also withdrawn the ‘Fakhr-e-Qaum’ title bestowed upon Sukhbir’s father and former chief minister late Parkash Singh Badal.
{{/usCountry}}Before the Sikh clergy pronounced the tankhah (religious punishment) on December 2, Sukhbir had admitted to the mistakes, including pardoning of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh in a 2007 blasphemy case, when the SAD was in power. As part of the punishment, the clergy had also withdrawn the ‘Fakhr-e-Qaum’ title bestowed upon Sukhbir’s father and former chief minister late Parkash Singh Badal.
{{/usCountry}}In his address, Sukhbir also took a dig at independent parliamentarians Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa and Amritpal Singh. “As a true mass leader, vadde Badal sa’ab spent 16 years in jail fighting for the larger public interest. But here, a person is crying after one year in prison,” he said in a veiled attack on Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh, who is lodged in Assam’s Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act (NSA). He added that the Faridkot MP (Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa) has never been seen raising the issues of the masses. He also claimed there had been efforts to form a new political party.
Sukhbir asked the party workers to make the SAD’s political conference next week a grand success and make way for the Akali government in the next elections.
Earlier in the day, he paid obeisance at the Takht Damdama Sahib in Bathinda’s Talwandi Sabo on the birth anniversary of 10th Sikh master Guru Gobind Singh.