Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
CHANDIGARH, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Capt Amarinder Singh today condemned the amendment to the Sikh Gurdwara Act debarring and disenfranchising the Sehajdhari Sikhs from their voting rights in the SGPC elections, saying, it will simply divide the community.
“This is the most regressive and retrograde move by the government of India at the behest of the Akalis just to retain their hold on the SGPC and in the process have divided the community”, Capt Amarinder said in a statement issued here today.
The former Chief Minister reiterated that every Sikh, who believes in the tenets of Sikhism, must have the right to vote in the SGPC elections. “It is an irony that the very democratic legislative procedure has been misused to disenfranchise a large section of the society from exercising their democratic right to vote”, he observed, while hoping that the amendment does not stand the scrutiny of the judicial review.
Asserting that this was a monumental mistake that was being committed at the behest of the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Capt Amarinder pointed out, all religions in the world like to propagate their ideology and win over more followers and here Mr Badal’s has engineered a move that will virtually shut its doors on millions of followers, who despite being Sikhs will not be recognised as such in the SGPC elections.
