Graft charges against GK: All DSGMC office-bearers, executive members resign
FRESH ELECTION CALLED; SAD TO TAKE CALL ON BRINGING NEW FACES IN THE GURDWARA BODY
CHANDIGARH : All 15 members, including five office-bearers, of the executive body of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) resigned on Thursday over allegations of corruption against gurdwara body president Manjit Singh GK and decided to call general house meeting for fresh election.
After DSGMC general secretary Manjinder Singh Sirsa tendered his resignation, others, including GK, too followed suit.
With this, a rocky tenure of GK, who has been critical of functioning of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), which controls DSGMC and other gurdwara bodies, came to an end. He was elected as DSGMC chief in February 2013 for the first time and won comfortably for second consecutive time in 2017.
The elections of office-bearers are held after two years and that of the general body every four years.
For SAD, which under the leadership of Sukhbir Singh Badal is passing through a rough phase after the Justice Ranjit Singh commission report blamed the party top brass for 2015 sacrilege incidents and police firing, corruption charges against the Delhi gurdwara body chief have come as a major blow.
The gurdwara election commission was asked to hold the elections between December 27 and 30. The election of officebearers was scheduled in March and that of the general house in 2021. The general body comprises 55 members, of which 46 come via elections in the national capital, two each by “co-option and lottery system”, one member from the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), and four members are from clergy, who don’t have voting rights.
A telephone conversation between gurdwara body independent member Gurmeet Singh Shanty and a tent shop owner in which it is mentioned that the committee has procured ₹1 crore fake bills has gone viral.
Shanty has also approached court seeking registration of an FIR against GK. The court has asked the police to submit action taken report.
“I have filed a complaint in Patiala House Court and submitted proof of corruption. He (GK) cannot escape now,” Shanty told HT.
GK said he has resigned on moral grounds. “There are people who don’t resign even after registration of FIRs against them. I have sent my resignation to party president (Sukhbir),” GK said.
“I will come clear on this. Nobody has done the work I did as DSGMC head. I have taken up issues of NRI Sikhs, got deleted the names of Sikh asylees in foreign countries from the Union home ministry’s black list and confronted the Khalistanis,” he added.