As win­ter re­cedes in the com­ing weeks and elec­tion fever grips Delhi Sikh lead­ers, Delhi has started wit­ness­ing a sea­son of turn­coats. Diehard politi­cians in the garb of Se­wadars of the San­gat are mon­key­ing from one party to an­other on the ba­sis of their as­sess­ment of who is likely to win the en­su­ing DS­GMC elec­tions, likely to hap­pen in April/ May later this year. Gurmeet Singh of the Delhi Desk of The World Sikh News re­ports on de­vel­op­ments in the pres­ti­gious Ra­jouri Gar­den con­stituency.

AT A RE­CENT MEET­ING OF THE JAGO PARTY at the res­i­dence of Ra­jouri Gar­den Singh Sabha pres­i­dent Har­man­jit Singh in the heart of Delhi and the densely pop­u­lated Sikh cen­tre of Ra­jouri Gar­den, with the for­mer leader of Badal Dal Paramjit Singh Rana in at­ten­dance, who was re­cently ex­pelled from the Badal, JAGO party pres­i­dent Man­jit Singh GK an­nounced the can­di­da­ture of Baldeep Singh Raja, the brother of for­mer Badal Dal stal­wart Har­man­jit Singh as the of­fi­cial party can­di­date for the Ra­jouri Gar­den con­stituency. Does any­one smell old wine in a new bot­tle? Or old wine in an old bot­tle?

The Pres­i­dent of the Ra­jouri Gar­den Singh Sabha Har­man­jit Singh is an old Sirsa hand and a sit­ting mem­ber of the Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee from the pop­u­lar Ra­jouri Gar­den con­stituency. This marks his good­bye to the party. Speak­ing to WSN, a lo­cal Sikh youth ac­tivist said, “In­ci­dents like these fur­ther in­crease dis­il­lu­sion­ment amongst the San­gat and wean them from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Gur­d­wara Elec­tions. The turnout in the last DS­GMC elec­tions from Ra­jouri Gar­den was very low and it is un­likely to in­crease this year.” That is the tragedy!”

Har­man­jit Singh, who had started ad­mon­ish­ing Sirsa pub­licly since the last year, ho­n­oured GK with a ‘Siropa’ and stated that “he had ac­quit­ted Man­jit Singh GK of all cor­rup­tion charges.” What an ex­on­er­a­tion!

The Ra­jouri Gar­den con­stituency com­prises an area of rich Sikhs, where the poor and the lower mid­dle class also live largely ig­nored by the Sikh lead­ers at the lo­cal level as well as the state level, ex­cept at the time of elec­tions like typ­ing In­dian po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship. Anti-in­cum­bency is likely to be high this year and the con­test is likely to be close, though the turnout will be the key de­ter­min­ing fac­tor. Har­man­jit Singh won the last elec­tion on the Badal Dal nom­i­na­tion which wit­nessed 46 per­cent­age vot­ing.

Even dur­ing the voter reg­is­tra­tion process, stal­warts from Badal Dal de­serted the party and joined the par­ties of Paramjit Singh Sarna and Bhai Ran­jit Singh. Af­ter spend­ing 7 years with Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal of the Badals and with Sirsa as the head, Gurmeet Singh Shunty re­joined the Sarna-led Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi. A staunch sup­porter of the Sar­nas, Jas­meet Singh from Ragh­bir Na­gar is prepar­ing to join the Pan­thic Akali Lehar of Bhai Ran­jit Singh.

With the Di­rec­torate of Gur­d­wara Elec­tions clos­ing the process of fresh voter reg­is­tra­tion de­spite re­quests from the Sikh San­gat and so­cial or­gan­i­sa­tions to en­sure the en­fran­chise­ment of more than 60,000 vot­ers who stand dis­en­fran­chised for non-ad­di­tion of the new pro­vi­sion this year of at­tach­ing pho­tos to the ex­ist­ing voter lists, groups de­sirous of con­test­ing elec­tions are grad­u­ally get­ting into elec­tion gear, notwith­stand­ing the Farm­ers Mor­cha at their doors on the out­skirts of Delhi.

Turn­coats add to more dis­il­lu­sion­ment among the San­gat and wean them from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Gur­d­wara Elec­tions. The turnout in the last DS­GMC elec­tions from Ra­jouri Gar­den was very low and it is un­likely to in­crease this year.” That is the tragedy!”

A Sikh Youth from Ra­jouri Gar­den

The reg­is­tered par­ties are try­ing hard to get their hold into Delhi Singh Sab­has and gain a foothold amongst the San­gat. These Singh Sab­has were ly­ing low through­out the voter reg­is­tra­tion process in Delhi for the last three months.

The Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi state with Harmeet Singh Kalka and Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa as the top lead­ers and the party ow­ing al­le­giance to the Badal Dal in Pun­jab, Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Delhi State led by Paramjit Singh Sarna and his brother Harvin­der Singh Sarna, the JAGO led by Man­jit Singh GK, the Pan­thic Lehar led by Gi­ani Ran­jit Singh, for­mer Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib, the Sikh Sadb­havna Dal led by Dar­bar Sahib Kir­ta­ni­aya Bhai Baldev Singh Wadala and the Pan­thic Sewa Dal led by Kar­tar Singh Kochhar are swing­ing into ac­tion with their cadres and sup­port­ers. The Aam Akali Dal led by Paramjit Singh Saini seems silent so far.

Speak­ing on the oc­ca­sion at the meet­ing, Man­jit Singh GK said that in view of al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, he re­signed from the pres­i­dency of the DS­GMC, whereas Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa con­tin­ues to be in the dri­ver’s seat of the DS­GMC de­spite large scale cor­rup­tion charges and even an FIR in mat­ters of cor­rup­tion. Re­port­edly, he also ex­tolled the qual­i­ties and work for the Delhi Sikh San­gat of his late fa­ther Jathedar San­tokh Singh, in whose mem­ory he has set up the party.

The Ra­jouri Gar­den has been a safe seat for the Badals from the last 8 years. Sirsa also won as an MLA from Ra­jouri Gar­den in the by-elec­tion of 2017 de­feat­ing sit­ting MLA Jar­nail Singh. Har­man­jit Singh, who had started ad­mon­ish­ing Sirsa pub­licly since the last year, ho­n­oured GK with a ‘Siropa’ and stated that “he had ac­quit­ted Man­jit Singh GK of all cor­rup­tion charges.” What an ex­on­er­a­tion!

The Sikh youth in Ra­jouri Gar­den are an­gry with the man­ner in which Har­man­jit Singh is run­ning the Singh Sabha of the area and the lo­cal Guru Nanak Pub­lic School ad­min­is­tered by the Singh Sabha.

The Sikh youth in Ra­jouri Gar­den are an­gry with the man­ner in which Har­man­jit Singh is run­ning the Singh Sabha of the area and the lo­cal Guru Nanak Pub­lic School ad­min­is­tered by the Singh Sabha. WSN learns that salaries have not been to teach­ers for Covid times and the mat­ter has gone to court. Like in all Gur­d­waras, the Singh Sabha made no ef­forts to en­sure that a max­i­mum num­ber of peo­ple reg­is­tered as vot­ers in the con­stituency.

Psy­chopa­thy, nepo­tism and a hunger for power are traits of the old Sikh lead­er­ship in Delhi and else­where too -in pol­i­tics and in Gur­d­waras. Un­less there is an ac­tive in­ter­ven­tion by well-mean­ing peo­ple, par­tic­u­larly the youth, such games are go­ing to in­crease in the com­ing weeks.