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Tohra urged to rise against Badal

Akali Dal-Democratic president Kuldip Singh Wadala has invited Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee president Gurcharan Singh Tohra to join the anti-Badal forces.

In a six-page statement released in Jalandhar, Wadala urged Tohra to raise his voice against Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal within the party or come out to orchestrate public opinion against him, as his government has abandoned the Panthic agenda.

Wadala, who parted company with Badal on the eve of the February 1997 assembly election in Punjab, said if Tohra failed to act now, he would not only be undermining the Panthic cause but would also jeopardise his position as SGPC president.

He reminded Tohra that had he not surrendered to Badal and given him the freedom to extend unconditional support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre, he (Tohra) would not have had his status in Akali politics eroded. Nor would ''the Shiromani Akali Dal have been reduced to the family affairs of Badal.''

Defending Tohra for raising ''constructive issues for inner-party democracy,'' Wadala reminded him that he had surrendered to Badal by saying ''we should abide by what the party president says.''

Charging the chief minister with having failed to govern Punjab properly, Wadala alleged that Badal has become a puppet in the hands of the BJP, and was now going from door to door to restore the declining image of his government.

He alleged that Badal has also failed to solve the outstanding problems of Punjab.

Defending the intervention of the Sikh clergy in the political affairs of Akalis, Wadala reminded Badal that such action had helped him become the president of SAD in 1994. If it was justified then, the present intervention too was appropriate in larger Panthic interests.

He appealed to the Akal Takht jathedar to convene a meeting of all Panthic organisations and Sant Samaj, an umberlla organisation of various Sikh saints, to forge unity.

Wadala said it was high time Badal was summoned to the highest seat of the Sikhs for having ''abandoned the Panthic cause, programmes and principles''.

UNI

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