Tohra’s pupil poses trouble for Badal

[Azaad]

It was during 2002-2003 when Akali leader Parkash Singh Badal and SGPC patriarch Gurcharan Singh Tohra parted ways. Paramjit Singh Sarna, then a Tohra acolyte, ensured that Delhi Sikhs came out of the shadow of Punjab politics.

Tohra found an able ally in Sarna to take on the powerful Badal and successfully oust his group during the July 2002 Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) elections. Sarna become president and Badal, then out of power in Punjab, patched up with Tohra in May 2003. While Tohra merged his party (Sarb Hind Shiromani Akali Dal) with Badal’s SAD, Sarna chose to break away.

In a calculated move, he decided to challenge the combined might of Badal and Tohra when the 2003 elections for the one-year term of DSGMC President were held. Sarna’s candidate, Prahlad Singh Chandhok, won. Then on, there was no looking back for Sarna, who calls himself as the leader of urban Sikhs.

Today, at the office of the DSGMC at Rakab Ganj Sahib, hangs a portrait of Tohra. Alongside is the portrait of Master Tara Singh, inarguably the tallest post-Independence Sikh leader, indicating that Sarna acknowledges the two leaders as his mentors.

Sarna, accompanied by his brother Harvinder Singh, did the unprecedented when in 2005 he made arrangements to send a gold ‘palki” in a procession to Nankana Sahib in Pakistan. By this time, the Sarnas, whose parents had migrated to Delhi from Rawalpindi, had become close to the then Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, who helped them in their endeavour.

Today, elections to the DSGMC are polarised on the Punjab versus Delhi lines. The Punjab CM and his son Sukhbir Badal are camping in Delhi. Sarna’s reputation of a tough opponent has brought several Punjab leaders here. Sarna, a businessman residing in Punjabi Bagh, says: “With me are the blessings of the Guru and my work to protect Sikhism. The Badals have ruined it all. Look at Punjab, 95 per cent of Sikh youths there do not support a turban. It is the RSS agenda that Badal has implemented in Punjab”.

Pointing out that thousands of Punjab police personnel, officers and sarpanches were camping in Delhi, Sarna asked: “Why does Badal not improve the functioning of SGPC-run colleges and schools? We are doing much better than the SGPC”. For the SAD, a victory in the gurdwara poll could help the party bargain with its alliance partner (BJP) for moe seats in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha elections. In its formative years, the DSGMC had Jathedar Santokh Singh as its leader. He was shot dead in the early 80s. After his killing, no elections were held for more than 15 years during which the Congress lost its Sikh support base because of Operation Bluestar and the 1984 riots.

With the Madan Lal Khurana-led BJP coming to power in Delhi, the DSGMC elections were held in 1995, which the Badal-led Akalis swept, ousting Congress loyalists from the committee.