SAD chief’s posers bid to shift blame on others: Randhawa

Senior Congress leader Sukhjinder Randhawa on Saturday alleged that SAD chief Sukhbir Badal’s posers to rival parties over the 2015 desecration cases was an attempt to salvage his political career by shifting blame on others.

Randhawa, who is also a Lok Sabha MP from Gurdaspur, said Sukhbir lacked the moral right to question others over the issue when he himself had “admitted his guilt” before the Akal Takht — the highest temporal seat for the Sikhs.

The alleged desecration of a religious text at two gurdwaras in Faridkot’s Bargari and Burj Jawahar Singh Wala villages had taken place during the SAD-BJP regime, when Sukhbir was the deputy Chief Minister.

Randhawa’s charge has come a day after Sukhbir dared the Congress to reveal names of the leaders who “shielded” perpetrators of the sacrilege incidents.

The SAD chief alleged Congress leaders Pargat Singh and Randhawa recently admitted that their party “indulged in politics on the issue for political gains”.

The accusation came in the wake of the SAD alleging a day before that ruling AAP leaders were behind the sacrilege incidents.

Randhawa’s accusation that Sukhbir had accepted his guilt before the Akal Takht stemmed from an apology furnished by Sukhbir to the temporal seat for the mistakes committed during his party’s decade-long rule from 2007-17 over issues concerning the Sikh community.

The temporal seat had also on December 2 last year held Sukhbir and several other SAD leaders guilty of religious misconduct over issues concerning the community during the party rule.

Taking on the SAD leader, Randhawa said it was both astonishing and hypocritical that Sukhbir continued to make “hollow claims” and point fingers at others when he himself had “accepted responsibility for the grave misdoings during his tenure as the deputy chief minister”.

“Having submitted to the judgment of the Akal Takht and undergone a religious punishment for his role in the sacrilege cases, including facilitating the controversial pardon of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim, Sukhbir Badal has no moral ground to lecture others,” Randhawa said. “His apology and the religious penalties imposed on him...stand as undeniable proof of his complicity in undermining Sikh sentiments and failing to deliver justice in the sacrilege cases,” added the MP.