Former DSGMC Chief Manjit Singh GK expelled from Akali Dal Badal

In a body blow to the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal af­ter its hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat in the gen­eral elec­tions in Pun­jab, for­mer DS­GMC chief Man­jit Singh GK posed ques­tions about the SAD pol­icy lead­ing to the party de­ba­cle and the party re­torted back by ex­pelling him from the party on grounds of cor­rup­tion.  Even­tu­ally, Man­jit Singh may land in jail, but who will bail out the com­mu­nity from the se­vere crises?

QUES­TION­ING the bonafide and poli­cies of the Shi­ro­mani Akali Dal lead­er­ship is an un­called-for ex­cur­sion by any­one in the feu­dal, un­de­mo­c­ra­tic set-up of the party led by Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal. With all odds against him, Man­jit Singh GK paid the price for that as he was ex­pelled by the core com­mit­tee of the party on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Delhi unit af­ter he wrote an open let­ter to the Sikh com­mu­nity in which he posed queries about the poli­cies and work­ing of the party lead­er­ship in Pun­jab.

Man­jit Singh GK said that “he was lis­ten­ing to the voice of his con­science and that he was ashamed of read­ing news and analy­sis of the de­feat of the party in Pun­jab.”

He has stated in his mis­sive that the party lead­er­ship failed to make the 1984 is­sue a prime elec­tion is­sue and though the Modi gov­ern­ment had taken many pro-Sikh steps like can­celling the black­list of Sikhs, the party could not en­cash them po­lit­i­cally. He said that “we are on the cross­roads and it is time for the in­tel­lec­tu­als of the com­mu­nity to think of ways to res­ur­rect the sta­tus of the party.”

Con­clud­ing his let­ter, he re­ferred to the  times of Akali stal­wart Mas­ter Tara Singh, when the slo­gan of the party was “Main Maran Panth Jeeve” -mean­ing, “Let me die, but let the Panth sur­vive and grow.” Hit­ting hard at the Badal Dal lead­er­ship, he posed tongue-in-cheek, “Has the slo­gan been re­versed?”

Af­ter two days of bick­er­ing be­tween Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa, who is now the DS­GMC pres­i­dent and his bête noire, wherein they traded abuses at each other through the me­dia, the cen­tral lead­er­ship of the party, ac­cepted the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Delhi unit of the party and party leader Bal­winder Singh Bhun­der, an MP in the up­per house of the In­dian Par­lia­ment, an­nounced his ex­pul­sion from the party on grounds of cor­rup­tion, which are pend­ing in var­i­ous courts of Delhi, with­out touch­ing the is­sues raised in GK’s let­ter.

Dur­ing the times of Akali stal­wart Mas­ter Tara Singh, the slo­gan of the party was “Main Maran Panth Jeeve” -mean­ing, “Let me die, but let the Panth sur­vive and grow.” “Has the slo­gan been re­versed?”

Man­jit Singh GK, in an Open Let­ter to the Sikh com­mu­nity while re­fer­ring to the Badal Dal lead­er­ship

In­ter­est­ingly the pre­sent DS­GMC lead­er­ship have very con­ve­niently washed their hands off from the cor­rup­tion which hap­pened dur­ing Man­jit Singh GK’s tenure. DS­GMC pres­i­dent Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa and Takht Har­mandir Ji Patna Sahib Pres­i­dent Av­tar Singh Hit are at­tempt­ing a huge pub­lic­ity blitzkrieg to win over the good­will of the Sikh San­gat in Delhi by ap­por­tion­ing the whole blame game on GK and are them­selves in­dulging in face-sav­ing and dam­age-con­trol ex­er­cises.

Man­jit Singh GK, who at the be­hest of his party had taken on the 2020 cam­paign­ers in the US, some­time back, has landed in a soup. GK’s fa­ther Jathedar San­tokh Singh, af­ter full sup­port from the Con­gress Party and es­pe­cially Mrs In­dira Gandhi, fought back op­po­nents and de­spite the no­to­ri­ous route taken by him, he ren­dered many ser­vices to the Sikhs of Delhi.

Will Man­jit Singh GK be able to save his skin? His re­tort at his pro­posed ex­pul­sion was, “those who have been out­casted by the peo­ple, how dare they dis­miss me?”  With the SAD against him, the BJP in Delhi is not likely to touch him with a barge pole, though he did make ef­forts to get into their good books.

Man­jit Singh GK is likely to be the first DS­GMC pres­i­dent to go to jail on cor­rup­tion charges. He may get bail from there, but who will bail out the Sikh com­mu­nity from lies, sub­terfuge, cor­rup­tion and feu­dal­ism?

With Gurmeet Singh Shunty on his heels, not miss­ing an op­por­tu­nity to bring the al­leged frauds of Man­jit Singh GK, other mem­bers of the for­mer com­mit­tee and staff to jus­tice, there seems no es­cape. With Harvin­der Singh Sarna of the Delhi Akali Dal join­ing the is­sue with more cases against him, there is a huge like­li­hood of Man­jit Singh GK be­com­ing the first DS­GMC pres­i­dent to be lodged in Ti­har Jail soon.

Well, he may get bail from there, but who will bail out the Sikh com­mu­nity from lies, sub­terfuge, cor­rup­tion and feu­dal­ism?