35 of 46 seats, SAD (Badal) is 2nd time lucky

EMERGING ON top for the second term in a row, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) won 35 of 46 seats in the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Management Committee (DSGMC), voting for which was held on Sunday.

Manjeet Singh GK, president (Delhi), Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal), said the results are just a trailer of the upcoming municipal polls. He also claimed that the results have shown that people have rejected the AAP.

“This is just a glimpse of how the municipal results will unfold. The elections are crucial as the AAP’S group, Panthak Sewa Dal, which fielded 39 candidates, lost miserably. The party is led by the AAP MLA from Kalkaji. They did not get even one seat,” Manjeet said. AAP spokesperson Deepak Bajpai, however, said the AAP was not involved in the elections. “We have repeatedly said the AAP has no connection with any party contesting the Gurudwara elections.”

In the 2013 DSGMC elections, SAD had bagged 37 seats, SAD Delhi eight seats and Kendriya Sri Guru Singh Sabha one seat.

Terming SAD’S victory in DSGMC polls as “just a curtain raiser to the results of Punjab polls”, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal described the poll outcome as “victory of Khalsa Panth over the old and new enemies of the Sikh masses. The mandate is also an unequivocal endorsement of the party’s approach towards handling of crucial Sikh issues... The Sikh Sangat has delivered a strong and categorical rebuff to all such conspirators who had been recklessly spreading misinformation in the community to kill its traditional reservoirs of moral and spiritual strength,” Badal said.

SAD (Delhi), which has the support of the Congress, secured seven seats. Akal Sahai Welfare society and independent candidates won two seats each.

The Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Committee controls minority schools, colleges, including the popular SGTB Khalsa College, and 10 religious shrines in Delhi.

There were 335 candidates in the fray for Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Committee for 2017. Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) had pitted 46 candidates with Shiromani Akali Dal (Delhi) fielding the same number of contestants. AAM Akali Dal had nine candidates, Akali Sahai Welfare society fielded 11 candidates, Panthak Sewa Dal had 39 candidates and there were 184 independent contestants in the elections.

The entire election of DSGMC will be completed by the end of March as five members and four head priests of four Takhts of Sikhs — the Akal Takht, Takht Keshgarh Sahib, Takht Patna Sahib and Takht Hazur Sahib — are to be co-opted by March 16 in a meeting of the elected members to be convened by the director, Gurudwara Election.

After that, the director will call the first meeting of the committee for electing pro tempore chairperson of the committee by March 30, senior government officials said.

SAD’S Manjinder Singh Sirsa polled 2,215 votes and defeated SAD (Delhi) president and former DSGMC president Paramjit Singh Sarna by 497 votes from Punjabi Bagh segment.

Incumbent DSGMC president Manjit Singh GK won from Greater Kailash ward number 38, defeating independent candidate Mahan Singh by 1,250 votes. GK polled 62.75 per cent of the total votes cast.