General house meeting to elect new office-bearers on Nov 27

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, November 21

At a time when the SGPC’s general house was all set to elect its new body for the next annual term, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has sent an endorsement to the year-old existing team whose tenure was on the verge of lapse.

The SGPC has already called up the meeting of the general house on November 27, which will take a decision on its next president, office-bearers and new executive body to run the affairs.

Referring to the SGPC’s general house meeting held on November 13, 2018, a notification was issued by the MHA dated November 19, 2019, under the provisions contained in sub-rule (2) of rule 11 of the Sikh Gurdwaras Board (Election of Office Bearers and Executive Committee) Rules-1925.

According to this notification, the Centre has published the names of the elected office-bearers of the SGPC, namely, Gobind Singh Longowal as president, Raghujit Singh Virk as senior vice-president, Bikkar Singh and Gurbachan Singh Karmuwala as junior vice-president and general secretary, respectively. Likewise, the names of 11-member executives too were mentioned. All were elected a year ago.

Bewildered over this delayed communication, Longowal said the MHA had been endorsing the decision of the general house meeting held at Teja Singh Samundri Hall a year ago.

“This notification was basically referring to sanction the general house proceedings held a year ago. It could be called a routine official proceeding but was unexpectedly delayed. Now, we are all set to hold the fresh general house meeting on November 27 to elect the new team,” he added.