Cong leaders lock horns over Baring Union Christian College, Batala, land ownership

Ravi Dhaliwal

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Tribune News Service

Batala, January 28

Rajya Sabha member Partap Singh Bajwa has supported the management of the 150-year-old Baring Union Christian (BUC) College in the institution’s attempt to maintain control over a piece of land located within its playground even as his long-time bête-noire Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa has backed the district administration’s claim of land belonging to the Public Works Department (PWD).

Strike of students and staff of the college has become the order of the day with several prominent Christian leaders deciding to back the management. Former MLA Ashwani Sekhri, too, has gone on record as saying Tript Bajwa was meddling in the city’s affairs to get an political advantage “because he wants to contest the 2022 Assembly elections from Batala.”

Tript retorted, “Sekhri’s imagination, as usual, had run riot.”

On January 16, officials of the administration barged into the college compound and started the groundwork for demarcation of the controversial piece of land. Subsequently, Sekhri reached the spot, forcing officials to leave.

Sekhri claimed that Tript had instigated the officials to go to the college.

An official said the road, at one time, was a part of a state highway. “Over a period of time, the college encroached upon it. Now, the time has come for it to be widened for which the piece of land is needed,” he said.

The DC, Vipul Ujwal, said he had called a meeting of all stakeholders in the first week of February.

Today, Partap Bajwa wrote a letter to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, seeking his intervention. In an oblique reference to Tript Bajwa, he has written “it seems someone highly placed in the political echelons wants to malign the government.”