In the mid-term polls of of­fice bear­ers of the Man­ag­ing Com­mit­tee of Takht Sri Har­mandir Ji, Patna Sa­heb, a team ow­ing al­le­giance to the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal Badal sweeped the elec­tions de­feat­ing some key post hold­ers. In­cum­bent Pres­i­dent Delhi-based Av­tar Singh Hit who as­sumed lead­er­ship al­most three years ago, al­most in a coup, re-elected a new Com­mit­tee.  WSN ed­i­tor Jag­mo­han Singh analy­ses the de­vel­op­ments, which gen­er­ally es­capes the at­ten­tion of the Sikh world as the old com­mit­tee has not much to show in terms of achieve­ment since its for­ma­tion.

WHILE THERE WAS NO IN­TER­EST IN PAN­THIC CIR­CLES for the mid-term of­fice bear­ers’ polls, as it was a fore­gone con­clu­sion that Badal Dal will form the new Com­mit­tee, the San­gat in Patna Sahib, Jhark­hand, Bi­har, West Ben­gal and Orissa, were in for a sur­prise on 25 July, when Pres­i­dent Av­tar Singh Hit suc­ceeded in out­class­ing wiz­ardous Takht Patna Sahib Gen­eral Sec­re­tary Ma­hen­der Pal Singh Dhillon and Sec­re­tary Ma­hen­der Singh Chab­bra from their posts. As per the Rules and Bye-laws of the Takht Sri Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib, a mid-term poll of of­fice bear­ers has to be con­ducted af­ter two and half years of the for­ma­tion of the 11-mem­ber Man­ag­ing Com­mit­tee through elec­tion, co-op­tion and nom­i­na­tion.

For the first time in many years, elec­tions of the of­fice-bear­ers of Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee were car­ried out smoothly and peace­fully with the su­per­vi­sion and reg­u­la­tion of a full team of eight ad­min­is­tra­tive and po­lice of­fi­cials un­der the lead­er­ship of Sub-Di­vi­sional Of­fi­cer Patna city Mukesh Ku­mar, de­puted by the Dis­trict Mag­is­trate of Patna City. 

Thank­ing Akalpu­rakh and the Sikh San­gat af­ter the elec­tion process was com­pleted, re-elected Pres­i­dent Av­tar Singh Hit told the me­dia, “We will work for the wel­fare of hu­man­ity and the Sikh San­gat with re­newed vigour and ded­i­ca­tion, in an ab­solutely trans­par­ent man­ner. We will come up to the ex­pec­ta­tions of the Sikh San­gat.”

Av­tar Singh Hit said, “We will cel­e­brate the 400th Birth An­niver­sary of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur on a grand scale in the first week of Jan­u­ary 2021 co­in­cid­ing with the birth an­niver­sary of Guru Gob­ind Singh. By then, an au­to­mated kitchen and con­struc­tion of new rooms for the San­gat would also be done.”

“We have re­ceived as­sur­ance of sup­port from the Bi­har Chief Min­is­ter Ni­tish Ku­mar,” he added. 

Elected as Gen­eral Sec­re­tary, the mem­ber from Jamshed­pur -In­dar­jit Singh, along with Har­bans Singh will now be the new ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­ity of the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee.  Promis­ing to be avail­able at San­gat’s beck and call, In­dar­jit Singh called upon Sikh San­gat from Bi­har, Jhark­hand, Odisha and West Ben­gal to par­tic­i­pate more com­pre­hen­sively in the Takht af­fairs. 

We will cel­e­brate the 400th Birth An­niver­sary of Guru Tegh Ba­hadur on a grand scale in the first week of Jan­u­ary 2021.

Av­tar Singh Hit, Pres­i­dent, Takht Patna Sahib Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee

Jagjit Singh Sohi from Patna Sahib is the new Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent and Lakhin­der Singh from Kati­har is the Ju­nior Vice-Pres­i­dent and Har­bans Singh Khanuja is the new Sec­re­tary of the body. 

A new mem­ber Gurinder Singh, nom­i­nated by the Dis­trict Judge, Patna, in place of his fa­ther Tar­lochan Singh -who passed away, also at­tended the meet­ing.  In­ter­est­ingly, in­de­pen­dent ob­servers clas­sify this nom­i­na­tion as “un­der the BJP quota.”

Strictly fol­low­ing the rule book in let­ter and spirit, no in­ter­ven­tion by any­one was al­lowed to be ex­erted be­fore and dur­ing the poll process. WSN learns that co-opted mem­ber of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee Harpal Singh Jo­hal, who had been re­moved from the Com­mit­tee dur­ing a Zoom meet­ing on 11 July for vi­o­la­tion of the Sikh code of con­duct and un­par­lia­men­tary lan­guage in the Takht premises, was ad­mit­ted to be pre­sent in the meet­ing, but with­out the right to vote. 

While the Av­tar Singh Hit Com­mit­tee does not have any achieve­ments to its credit, it must still be said that they were able to suc­cess­fully de­throne Gi­ani Iqbal Singh as Jathedar Takht Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib for his anti-Pan­thic ac­tiv­i­ties and also dis­lodge Ma­hen­der Pal Singh Dhillon from the post of Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the Takht Com­mit­tee as he was a con­tin­u­ous hur­dle for the last al­most two decades, in the fur­ther­ance of Pan­thic af­fairs at Patna. 

The Sikh San­gat in Bi­har and Jhark­hand is keep­ing a close watch on whether the new com­mit­tee will in­ves­ti­gate and take ac­tion against acts of malfea­sance and fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­ity of the out­go­ing gen­eral sec­re­tary and oth­ers of the au­gust Sikh body.

Re­cently, un­der pres­sure from the Sikh San­gat, Jathedar Iqbal Singh had va­cated the room that he was il­le­gally oc­cu­py­ing in the Takht premises.  How­ever, a pe­ti­tion, filed by his son’s friend Man­meet Singh (who him­self is in prison for theft and other il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties) chal­leng­ing Gi­ani Iqbal Singh’s re­moval is still pend­ing with Dis­trict Judge Patna.

For­mer Pres­i­dent of the SGPC Gob­ind Singh Lon­gowal, who is the SGPC nom­i­nee to the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee was also pre­sent in the meet­ing. In an open let­ter to all mem­bers, Mo­hin­der Pal Singh Dhillon has ques­tioned his par­tic­i­pa­tion, say­ing, “he has been de­barred by Akal Takht Jathedar Gi­ani Harpreet Singh for one year from par­tic­i­pat­ing in any re­li­gious func­tion.” Sources told WSN that af­ter speak­ing on the phone line with Gi­ani Harpreet Singh, Jathedar Takht Patna Sahib Gi­ani Ran­jit Singh dis­al­lowed this ob­jec­tion.” More­over, af­ter the elec­tions, Le­gal Ad­vi­sor to the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee Cha­ran­jit Singh Saluja re­spond­ing to a ques­tion from the me­dia said, “the al­le­ga­tion of Dhillon is un­founded. If it were true, he too should be held re­spon­si­ble, be­cause he had asked Lon­gowal to at­tend the meet­ing as a mem­ber of the Board.”

While the Av­tar Singh Hit Com­mit­tee does not have any achieve­ments to its credit, it must still be said that they were able to suc­cess­fully de­throne Gi­ani Iqbal Singh as Jathedar Takht Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib for his anti-Pan­thic ac­tiv­i­ties and also dis­lodge Ma­hen­der Pal Singh Dhillon from the post of Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the Takht Com­mit­tee as he was a con­tin­u­ous hur­dle for the last al­most two decades, in the fur­ther­ance of Pan­thic af­fairs at Patna. 

Out­go­ing Gen­eral Sec­re­tary Ma­hen­der Pal Singh Dhillon has not handed over the charge to the new gen­eral sec­re­tary till the time of writ­ing, even though Jathedar Takht Patna Sahib Gi­ani Ran­jit Singh, in a let­ter had di­rected of­fice bear­ers to hand over their re­spec­tive charge to the new team soon af­ter the elec­tions.

It will be in­ter­est­ing to see how the new team reg­u­larises the ac­counts of the past three years and then pre­pares a new bud­get. The Sikh San­gat in Bi­har and Jhark­hand is keep­ing a close watch on whether the new com­mit­tee will in­ves­ti­gate and take ac­tion against acts of malfea­sance and fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­ity of the out­go­ing gen­eral sec­re­tary and oth­ers of the au­gust Sikh body.  Av­tar Singh Hit has how­ever as­sured that all ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties would be thor­oughly checked and no­body will be spared.

An in­cor­ri­gi­ble lit­i­gant, Dhillon is be­lieved to be buy­ing time and run­ning from pil­lar to post to get the 25 July pro­ceed­ings de­clared null and void. The Dis­trict and Ses­sions Judge Patna-cum Cus­to­dian of Takht Patna Sahib -Sunil Dutta Mishra, un­der the Rules and Bye-laws gov­ern­ing Takht Patna Sahib has al­ready con­firmed the for­ma­tion of the new com­mit­tee and the elec­tion of the new of­fice bear­ers through his let­ter dated 30 July 2021.

Sig­nif­i­cantly, doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to the elec­tions ac­cessed by the WSN show that all pro­ceed­ings were recorded in Hindi, though it was a re­lief to learn that the meet­ing pro­ceed­ings were con­ducted in Pun­jabi. 

As Pan­thic groups in Pun­jab and other parts of In­dia show lit­tle or no in­ter­est in the af­fairs of Takht Patna Sahib, in­vari­ably, all these years, the Badal Dal stays en­trenched in the af­fairs of the Man­ag­ing Com­mit­tee of Takht Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib. Clearly, the new team mem­bers have been en­dorsed by the high­est ech­e­lons of the Badal Dal lead­er­ship. 

Sig­nif­i­cantly, doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to the elec­tions ac­cessed by the WSN show that all pro­ceed­ings were recorded in Hindi and Eng­lish, though it was a re­lief to learn that the meet­ing pro­ceed­ings were con­ducted in Pun­jabi. 

The de­moc­ra­ti­za­tion of the decades-old Rules and Bye-laws of the Takht Sri Har­mandir Ji Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee may be taken up at the ear­li­est.

WSN learns that there are many prob­lems and is­sues con­cern­ing the Sikh San­gat, namely the wel­fare of the staff of the Takht Sahib, ac­com­mo­da­tion for vis­it­ing San­gat, up­keep of his­toric Gur­d­waras around Patna Sahib, re­view of the decades-old Rules and Bye-laws of the Takht Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, which have not been at­tended to by the pre­sent com­mit­tee, in the same way as it was ig­nored by ear­lier lead­ers. 

With two years left, it re­mains to be seen what the Av­tar Singh Hit team de­liv­ers to the Sikh San­gat, es­pe­cially those in and around Patna Sahib. Pan­thic groups and in­di­vid­ual ob­servers from near and far need to be more vig­i­lant to make such im­por­tant Gur­d­wara man­age­ment com­mit­tees more re­spon­si­ble and ac­count­able to the San­gat.