Ahead of Dec 16 MC polls, Khattar visits Karnal gurdwara to placate Sikhs

KARNAL : To woo agitated members of the Sikh community ahead of the municipal corporation elections in the town scheduled on December 16, Haryana chief minister on Sunday made a sudden visit to Gurdwara Nanaksar on Sunday. The CM met Sant Baba Kashmir Singh and inquired about his health. Former mayor Renu Bala Gupta, who is the probable mayor candidate of the ruling party from Karnal MC, accompanied the CM. Later interacting with the media persons in Punjabi, Khattar said he had come to the Gurdwara to inquire about the health of Baba Kashmir Singh. He was welcomed with tea and snacks.

However, some members of the Sikh community are reading the visit as an attempt to pacify Sikh voters. “The poster of Bhindranwale is still installed outside the gurdwara gate, but today the CM did not object to this portrait as he had done in September this year by cancelling his visit to a gurdwara in Dachar. There too, a portrait is installed in the gurdwara,” said Sangram Singh, a resident. “We were to protest against the visit, but our elders pacified us,” he added.

Janpal Singh, president of Dachar gurdwara committee, told HT that this visit would not have any significance as the members of the community, in a meeting on October 6 in Karnal, had unanimously decided to boycott BJP leaders until the CM tendered his apology, to the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs and later visited the Dachar Gurdwara.

SOME MEMBERS OF THE SIKH COMMUNITY HAVE SEEN THE VISIT AS AN ATTEMPT TO PACIFY VOTERS