Over 4,000 backed sect head for Padma awards

NEW DELHI: The government received more than 4,000 recommendations for a 2017 Padma award to Dera Sacha Sauda sect chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, five of them from the spiritual leader himself.

The Union home ministry was flooded with applications nominating the 50-year-old burly, bearded “godman” who has scripted and starred in own films and commands a near-devotional following that runs into millions.

This happened before he was sentenced early this week to 20 years in jail for raping two sadhvis, or woman devotees, in cases that date back to 2002.

The overwhelming number of applications appears to be an orchestrated effort to recommend his name for the 2017 Padma awards. There was not a single recommendation for the awards given in 2015 and 2016.

The awardees are announced on the eve of Republic Day.

According to the list of recommendations for 2017, on the home ministry’s website, there were as many as 18,768 applications. The highest — 4,208 — were for the flamboyant dera chief who calls himself Saint Dr Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan. Almost all of them were from Haryana’s Sirsa, his sect’s headquarters.

In three recommendations, Singh gave his Sirsa address. For the other two, he wrote Hisar in Haryana and Ganganagar in Rajasthan. Most of those who nominated him gave only their first names.