Sarbjit Singh stirs Sikh emotions amidst Cong-Akal

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Sarbjit Singh stirs Sikh emotions amidst Cong-Akali mudslinging

AJAY BHARADWAJ AND BALWANT GARG

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 05, 2004 07:22:33 PM ]

BATHINDA: Amidst mudslinging between the Congress and the Akalis over corruption charges, the Akali Dal (Mann) has floated a new political idem. Filling up the void, the party candidate Sarbjit Singh Khalsa has been whipping up the spectre of Jarnail Singh Bhindrawala and his father Beant Singh, the assassin of Indira Gandhi.

25-year-old Sarbjit Singh has been trying to stir the Sikh emotions by raking up memories of turbulent times when many Sikh youths of his age group lost their lives for the cause of the panth. Attempting to consolidate the vote bank on the strength of which his gather-father Sucha Singh Maloya had won 1989 LS elections from Bathinda. Incidently his mother Bimal Kaur also elcected to the Lok Sabha from Ropar.

A plus-two pass out, Sarbjit Khalsa fumbles for his words, but sounds categorical in whipping up the Sikh sentiments, recounting the sacrifice of his father. “My father laid down his life for panthic cause. Now I, as his descendant, am seeking your support for the cause for which my father sacrificed his life”, he says in his addresses.

It is time to show how the Sikhs honour the descendants of martyrs, says Sarbjit trying to equate the ‘sacrifice’ of his father with that of Bhagat Singh. Every one wants martyrs like Bhagat Singh to be born, but not in his family rather in the neighbour house, a poster issued by Dal Khalsa, trying to win support for Sarbjit, reads.

Another poster, beseeches to remind the people of Operation Blue S

tar, the ‘martyr’ act of his father killing Gandhi and death sentence to him, in a chronicle. In the last is May 10, 2004 , the judgement day; to judge and honour the martyrs of Sikh Kaum.

Such posters are pasted all around in the area of Takht Damdama Sahib at Talwandi Sabo and villages where militancy was rampant in the past.

Going around in such villages, Khalsa makes it a point to honour the families whose boys were killed in police encounters. At Lehra Khana village, where more than a score families were affected, Khalsa honoured five families on Tuesday. In an adjoining village, Lehra Begga, Khalsa planning to honour five other families for ‘sacrifices’.

The ballad singers recite specially coined songs in the honour of his father at meeting places in villages to muster support for him, dubbing the SAD(B) is party of corrupts and those who tarnished image of panth and Congress which attacked Harminder Sahib. The meetings of Khalsa are attending by people once the speakers rake emotional issues, but the moot point is emotions translating in votes.