Membership drive by Takht panel fake, claims SAD

The Shiromani Akali Dal on Monday termed as “fake” the membership drive set to be launched by an Akal Takht-constituted panel for the party, saying it is being conducted for an outfit that doesn’t exist.

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The party also extended to March 25 its own membership drive and urged rebel party leaders to bury their differences with the SAD leadership.

Meanwhile, Gurpartap Singh Wadala — a member of the panel — said they were set to initiate the campaign in a democratic manner from the Golden Temple entrance plaza after performing an ardas at the Akal Takht on Tuesday.

He said drive was being held for the “Akali Dal, which is the original name of the party.”

“The word Shiromani was a later addition. We have adopted this original name to avoid any conflict”, he said.

The issue had been a bone of contention between the party and former Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh.

The drive was ordered by the Takht as part of a decree that had forced Sukhbir Badal to quit as the SAD chief amid demands for a reform in the party that has seen successive political debacles after its ouster from power in 2017.

The drive was to be followed by organisational polls to restructure the outfit, much to the chagrin of the current party leadership that rejected the Takht panel and initiated its own campaign on January 20.

However, previous Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh kept pushing for the drive by the panel constituted by the temporal seat. He was removed from his post by the SAD-dominated Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee earlier this month.

Two members of the panel — Harjinder Singh Dhami and Kirpal Singh Badungar — had also resigned from it, reducing its strength to five.

‘Shiromani’ omitted from party’s name: Cheema

Party spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema told reporters that the drive by the Takht panel was being held for a party called “Akali Dal”, omitting the word “Shiromani”.

“It is a fake exercise as no political party with that name exists,” he said.

Cheema said there was also no reference of the party’s bank account or office details. Questioning the authority of the panel, he said the membership form claimed that a seven-member committee was organising the drive but the panel had now only five members now after the resignation of Dhami and Badungar .

SAD working president Balwinder Singh Bhunder also urged rebel party leaders to forget their differences with the party leadership.

He said the unity among all Akali leaders and factions was a must to check new conspiracies of delimitation of parliamentary constituencies, a process likely to kickstart by the BJP-led Centre next year.

Bhunder said earlier too he had appealed to the estranged leaders to join the membership drive of SAD. “I had offered them to take membership slips of the party and become part of the membership drive. I reiterate this offer today,” he said.

He said SAD leaders would also attend an all-party meeting convened by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on March 22 to discuss the delimitation exercise.

“We feel this exercise will create an imbalance in the country with states that followed family planning programmes being put at a disadvantage. Some states like UP are likely to see an increase seats to 150 while there would be a marginal increase in seats of states like Punjab and Haryana,” he added.