Barely 8 of the 15 mem­bers of the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee will meet on 22 March in a last-ditch ef­fort to de­lay the elec­tion process for a new Com­mit­tee and to pass a bud­get which it is not en­ti­tled to do. As the term of the pre­sent Takht Sri Har­mandir Ji Patna Sa­heb Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee is to ter­mi­nate on 14 July 2023, the pre­sent lead­er­ship which has the covert bless­ings of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayam­se­wak Sangh pre­var­i­cat­ing and mak­ing at­tempts to cling on to the pedestal, Sikh re­form and ad­vo­cacy body The Sikh Col­lec­tive has writ­ten a mis­sive to the Dis­trict Judge of Patna seek­ing in­ter­ven­tion. A WSN Ex­clu­sive.

WILL the Ni­tish Ku­mar gov­ern­ment en­sure trans­parency in the con­duct of elec­tions to the Takht Patna Sa­heb Com­mit­tee? Will he stop the in­ter­fer­ence of the BJP in Sikhs af­fairs in Patna and Bi­har? Will there be re­form in the rules, reg­u­la­tions, and func­tion­ing of the Takth Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee with a Chief Min­is­ter at the helm who has pub­licly demon­strated his love and affin­ity for the Sikhs? These and many more such ques­tions will get an­swers in the com­ing weeks and months.

As the Bi­har State Elec­tion Au­thor­ity has made the pre­lim­i­nary steps set­ting in mo­tion the process of prepar­ing fresh elec­toral rolls, ad­dress­ing a let­ter to the Dis­trict and Ses­sions Judge Shri Ra­jeev Ran­jan Prasad, The Sikh Col­lec­tive has cat­e­gor­i­cally stated that any de­lay in the start of the elec­tion process would be a vi­o­la­tion un­der the By­laws of the Com­mit­tee and would be seen as against Sikh in­ter­ests.

Jag­mo­han Singh has un­mis­tak­enly stated that “Should the Pres­i­dent, Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent, and Gen­eral Sec­re­tary who are the ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­ity to con­duct elec­tions and do every­thing re­lat­ing thereto, be non-co­op­er­a­tive in this re­gard, then ap­pro­pri­ate steps may be taken as the man­dated by law.”

The let­ter states that “We are aware that the pre­sent in­cum­bents of the Com­mit­tee -who took charge only a few months back -31 De­cem­ber 2022 have not ini­ti­ated any steps to re­fresh elec­toral rolls and start the elec­tion process. It is grossly tragic to note that only 7 of the 15 mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee were pre­sent to elect the Pres­i­dent and other of­fice bear­ers, as one mem­ber has passed away, there is a pend­ing court case about the nom­i­nee of the Sanatani Sikh Sabha, three nom­i­nees of Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, Sri Guru Singh Sabha Kolkata re­spec­tively are pend­ing ap­proval with your of­fice since long and two mem­bers have been de­clared Tankhaiya by Sri Akal Takht Sahib and as they have not taken any fur­ther steps in that di­rec­tion their sta­tus con­tin­ues to be the same. The rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Ut­tar Pradesh Sikh Pra­tinidhi Board was ab­sent from the meet­ing. Clearly, a lame-duck body elected of­fice bear­ers who are now thwart­ing the de­mo­c­ra­tic elec­toral process.”

“Should the Pres­i­dent, Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent, and Gen­eral Sec­re­tary who are the ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­ity to con­duct elec­tions and do every­thing re­lat­ing thereto, be non-co­op­er­a­tive in this re­gard, then ap­pro­pri­ate steps may be taken as the man­dated by law.”

Jag­mo­han Singh, Con­venor, The Sikh Col­lec­tive

Mean­while, the Bi­har State Elec­tion Au­thor­ity, which has to con­duct the elec­tions as per a pre­vi­ous Patna High Court or­der has taken the first steps of ask­ing Pra­band­hak Com­mit­tee Sri Takht Ha­ri­man­der Ji, Patna Sa­heb to pre­pare the elec­toral rolls.

Speak­ing to The World Sikh News, Cha­ran­jit Singh Saluja, a mem­ber of the Takht Com­mit­tee and an au­thor­ity on Takht Patna Sahib af­fairs said, “I feel very sad. I see our Takht Com­mit­tee mem­bers do­ing grave in­jus­tice to the Sikh San­gat and to the birth­place of Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji.” He said that he has writ­ten a let­ter to the Sec­re­tary of the Bi­har State Elec­tion Au­thor­ity urg­ing them to ex­pe­dite the prepa­ra­tion of the vot­ers’ list for the Patna Takht Com­mit­tee. His let­ter states that “Ar­ti­cle 12 of the Con­si­tu­tion and By­laws of the Takht states that the Elec­toral rolls shall be main­tained by the Com­mit­tee and the said rolls shall be kept ready three months prior to the elec­tions.”

The learned le­gal ad­vi­sor of the Com­mit­tee al­leged that the of­fice bear­ers want to hold on to the Com­mit­tee by hook or by crook and that he was de­ter­mined to up­hold the prac­tice of de­mo­c­ra­tic norms in Takht man­age­ment af­fairs.

“The 31 De­cem­ber meet­ing was only to elect the Pres­i­dent. There was no other agenda. The Pres­i­dent-elect Jagjot Singh ma­neu­vered the elec­tion of the other of­fice bear­ers, and be­cause it was out­side the scope of the meet­ing, their elec­tion must be scrapped.”

Cha­ran­jit Singh Saluja, Mem­ber, Takht Ha­ri­mandir Ji Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee

Speak­ing to WSN, Cha­ran­jit Singh Saluja raised many ques­tions re­lat­ing to the con­duct of the pre­sent in­cum­bents of the Takht Patna Sahib Com­mit­tee.

“The meet­ing of 22 March should not be in a hurry to ad­dress the bud­getary needs as the pri­mary con­cern is to en­sure that the Elec­toral Rolls are pre­pared at the ear­li­est and steps taken for polling to take place be­fore the ex­piry of the term of the com­mit­tee,” he said.

Mon­i­tor­ing closely the func­tion­ing of the body, le­gal ex­pert Cha­ran­jit Singh Saluja said, “The 31 De­cem­ber meet­ing was only to elect the Pres­i­dent. There was no other agenda. The Pres­i­dent-elect Jagjot Singh ma­neu­vered the elec­tion of the other of­fice bear­ers, and be­cause it was out­side the scope of the meet­ing, their elec­tion must be scrapped.”

“I am clearly ded­i­cated to the func­tion­ing of the Takht Com­mit­tee in a trans­par­ent and de­mo­c­ra­tic man­ner and shall do every­thing re­quired to en­sure this.”

WSN has re­li­ably learned that Jagji­van Singh of Sri Guru Singh Sabha Chitkora and Kuldeep Singh Bagga of Gur­d­wara Singh Sabha of Fraser Road has also writ­ten to the Bi­har State Elec­tion Au­thor­ity seek­ing early prepa­ra­tion of elec­toral rolls for those mem­bers who are to con­test the pub­lic polls wherein only Sikhs of Bi­har vote.

Jag­mo­han Singh’s let­ter to the Dis­trict Judge says that “it should not take more than 2-3 weeks to pre­pare elec­toral rolls as the to­tal num­ber of vot­ers is likely to be less than 5000 in num­ber.”

For­mer Pres­i­dent of Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee Paramjit Singh Sarna, speak­ing to WSN said, “Elec­tions to the Takht Com­mit­tee must be freshly or­dered and a new com­mit­tee re­plac­ing the pre­sent one must be formed sooner than later.”

Pulling the rug off the feet of the Takht Com­mit­tee of­fice bear­ers, The Sikh Col­lec­tive let­ter says, “All of­fice bear­ers are rel­e­vant so long as they en­joy the faith of the Sikh San­gat. Any in­di­vid­ual or Com­mit­tee that over­shoots its term loses the trust of the com­mu­nity at large and the Sikh elec­torate which has elected, nom­i­nated, or co-opted them. They also do grave in­jus­tice to the sanc­tity of the au­gust body whose pri­mary task is to man­age Sikh in­sti­tu­tions. Any de­lay would be com­pro­mis­ing the con­sti­tu­tion of the Takht Com­mit­tee and the di­rec­tives of the Sikh com­mu­nity, com­mu­ni­cated through the Akal Takht Sahib. It is also cheat­ing of the Sikh San­gat with per­haps some hid­den ul­te­rior mo­tives.”

Jag­mo­han Singh in his let­ter has told the Dis­trict Judge that “The Sikhs in the Pun­jab and across the globe are keenly watch­ing the de­vel­op­ments at Takht Patna Sa­heb.”