Delhi San­gat fu­ri­ous at Badal Dal at­tack on Di­rec­tor Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, po­lice files case

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One would like to think that with the om­nipresent so­cial me­dia through smart­phones, there would be some sense of deco­rum and dig­nity in the con­duct of re­li­gious lead­ers, elected to be cus­to­di­ans of his­toric Gur­d­waras and Sikh in­sti­tu­tions. Sadly, in­stead of set­ting an ex­am­ple of ex­em­plary be­hav­iour, they are do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to wean away Sikhs fur­ther from the Gur­d­wara Elec­tion process and show dis­in­ter­est in Sikh re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal af­fairs. The murkier wran­glings and ex­pen­sive lit­i­ga­tion at the cost of the San­gat’s con­tri­bu­tions war­rant se­ri­ous and sus­tained ac­tion against the er­rant. WSN is com­mit­ted to high­light­ing the acts of mem­bers of DS­GMC which chal­lenge the im­age and dig­nity of the Sikh com­mu­nity. WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh delves into the Sep­tem­ber 9 in­ci­dents in­volv­ing the Badal Dal DS­GMC mem­bers at­tack­ing the Di­rec­tor Gur­d­wara Elec­tions Naren­der Singh and ap­peals for more vig­i­lance, par­tic­i­pa­tion and peo­ples’ ac­tion against lead­ers ma­lign­ing Sikhs.

The Co-op­tion and nom­i­na­tion of mem­bers to the gen­eral house of the DS­GMC was un­der­way on 9 Sep­tem­ber at the of­fice of the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions, Gov­ern­ment of Na­tional Cap­i­tal Re­gion of Delhi, presided by Di­rec­tor Gur­d­wara Elec­tions Naren­der Singh, when un­happy at the Di­rec­tor’s post­pone­ment of the de­ci­sions in the mat­ter of nom­i­na­tion of for­mer Pres­i­dent Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa and the co-op­tion of two mem­bers by vote from amongst the Pres­i­dents of Singh Sab­has, Badal Dal lead­ers re­sorted to abuse and phys­i­cal at­tack on the gov­ern­ment func­tionary.

Naren­der Singh had no choice but to de­fer the an­nounce­ment of re­sults as there was a dis­pute re­gard­ing the right to vote of Preet Vi­har newly-elected mem­ber Bhupin­der Singh Bhullar, in whose case a re­count of vote pe­ti­tion is pend­ing. In the case of the nom­i­na­tion of SGPC nom­i­nee Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa, who lost the elec­tions, a fresh ob­jec­tion was moved against his can­di­da­ture by Jago party mem­ber Sat­nam Singh Kheeva.

 Read also: What do you know of the Co-op­tion Drama of DS­GMC elec­tions?

 Read also: Delhi High Court con­firms Sarna co-op­tion, Badal Dal choice pend­ing, Sirsa nom­i­na­tion in limbo

This elec­tion hap­pens on the lines of pref­er­en­tial vot­ing with each elected mem­ber writ­ing his pref­er­ence and choice as first, sec­ond, third and so on. At the end of this process, Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi leader Paramjit Singh Sarna se­cured max­i­mum votes fol­lowed by Vikram Singh Ro­hini of the Badal Dal, with Jaswinder Singh Jolly a close third. While the two are vic­tors of the co-op­tion process, the an­nounce­ment of their elec­tion has been with­held by the Delhi High Court, as of now. 

Lo and be­hold, the Badal Dal can­di­date for the pref­er­en­tial vot­ing round Sat­pal Singh Chann was dis­qual­i­fied as he could not read and write in Gur­mukhi.

Four Jathedars of Takhts are to be pre­sent at the oath-tak­ing. It will be in­ter­est­ing to see what they have to say to Atma Singh Lubana and other Badal Dal DS­GMC mem­bers for their un­Pan­thic, un­Sikh, un­civil and un­de­mo­c­ra­tic be­hav­iour on 9 Sep­tem­ber at the Co-op­tion ses­sion.

Fac­ing a pos­si­ble de­feat in this round of the polls, Badal Dal lead­ers started re­sort­ing to abuse and fisticuffs. The move was led by a gen­tle­man called Atma Singh, pop­u­larly known as Atma Singh Lubana, as he be­longs to the Lubana fra­ter­nity and has won DS­GMC Elec­tion twice from the Tilak Na­gar ward pri­mar­ily on that ba­sis. The area has poor Sikhs of var­i­ous de­nom­i­na­tions in­clud­ing Sik­li­gar Sikhs. He is sweet-tongued but di­vi­sive. 

Atma Singh LubanaAtma Singh Lubana was the key fig­ure in ver­bally abus­ing and at­tack­ing Di­rec­tor Gur­d­wara Elec­tions -Naren­der Singh, who was dili­gently and un­bi­as­edly con­duct­ing the co-op­tion process. 

Well-mean­ing and con­sci­en­tious Sikhs in Delhi must take se­ri­ous no­tice of this and de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally cor­ner him. 

Speak­ing anony­mously to WSN, a Sik­li­gar Sikh of the area said, “It is un­for­tu­nate that he has won again this time. He con­ducts him­self like an over­lord and the Badal Dal uses his ser­vices for po­lit­i­cal up­man­ship re­sort­ing to cor­rupt means to gar­ner peo­ple’s sup­port from the poor women of the area.”

 Read also: In Delhi, Badal Dal’s 4 Mus­ke­teers face po­lice ac­tion for in­tim­i­da­tion

For­mer DIG Po­lice (Retd.) Par­tap Singh and Sikh Fo­rum Gen­eral Sec­re­tary Par­tap Singh called the in­ci­dents very shame­ful.

Atma Singh’s hold in the Tilak Na­gar area is wan­ing, yet he won again this time, al­though with a nar­row mar­gin. In 2017, Atma Singh se­cured 1800 votes out of 3352 valid votes polled, de­feat­ing Pavneet Singh of Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi by 1193 votes. In the just-con­cluded vot­ing in 2021, in a close con­test, he se­cured 597 votes out of the 2164 votes polled de­feat­ing Sikh Sad­hb­havna Dal nom­i­nee Amar­jeet Singh by only 86 votes.

Four Jathedars of Takhts are to be pre­sent at the oath-tak­ing. It will be in­ter­est­ing to see what they have to say to Atma Singh Lubana and other Badal Dal DS­GMC mem­bers for their un­Pan­thic, un­Sikh, un­civil and un­de­mo­c­ra­tic be­hav­iour on 9 Sep­tem­ber at the Co-op­tion ses­sion.

As the DS­GMC elec­tions 2021 will see nu­mer­ous le­gal bat­tles and prob­a­bly fisticuffs in the next fif­teen days till the gen­eral house is of­fi­cially con­sti­tuted, we have to as­sume re­spon­si­bil­ity to en­sure that deco­rum is main­tained and the dig­nity of the Sikhs is not com­pro­mised.

Atma Singh Lubana, elected mem­ber from ward num­ber 27 Tilak Vi­har, Bhupin­der Singh Ginny, elected mem­ber from ward num­ber 16 Tagore Gar­den, Ra­man­deep Singh Tha­par, elected mem­ber from ward num­ber 33 Shiv Na­gar, Harmeet Singh Kalka from ward num­ber 39 Kalkaji and Gagan Singh an as­so­ci­ate of Badal Dal are named in the FIR filed by the Delhi po­lice on a com­plaint by Naren­der Singh, DGE.

Sikh cir­cles in Delhi are dis­traught at the de­vel­op­ments which are badly af­fect­ing the im­age of the Sikhs in Delhi and which at the same time are omi­nous of the things to come in the DS­GMC in the near fu­ture. 

 Read also: DS­GMC mem­ber Kalra joins Badal Dal; turn­coats cheat Guru and San­gat

Speak­ing to a sec­tion of the me­dia, Naren­der Singh -Di­rec­tor, Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions has said that Badal Dal-af­fil­i­ated DS­GMC mem­bers at­tempted to brow­beat and in­tim­i­date him dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings. Upon his com­plaint, a po­lice case has been filed against mul­ti­ple mem­bers of the DS­GMC. 

Atma Singh Lubana, elected mem­ber from ward num­ber 27 Tilak Vi­har, Bhupin­der Singh Ginny, elected mem­ber from ward num­ber 16 Tagore Gar­den, Ra­man­deep Singh Tha­par, elected mem­ber from ward num­ber 33 Shiv Na­gar, Harmeet Singh Kalka from ward num­ber 39 Kalkaji and Gagan Singh an as­so­ci­ate of Badal Dal. WSN is in pos­ses­sion of a copy of the FIR No. 0263/​2021 un­der sec­tion 186/​353/​506/​188/​34 in the I .P. Es­tate Po­lice Sta­tion, with charges re­lat­ing to some bail­able and oth­ers non-bail­able of­fences of dis­obe­di­ence to a pub­lic ser­vant, as­sault, crim­i­nal in­tim­i­da­tion and ob­struc­tion of a pub­lic ser­vant dis­charg­ing his du­ties. 

WSN will con­stantly stay up with the de­vel­op­ments in the DS­GMC for the de­moc­ra­ti­sa­tion of the re­li­gious polity and en­sur­ing that self­less ser­vice and up­hold­ing the sanc­tity of the Sikh re­li­gion, as en­shrined in the oath and as ex­pected by the Sikh San­gat world­wide, be­comes a norm and not an ex­cep­tion.

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