BATHINDA, MAY 1: Congress leader Jagmeet Singh Brar said that there should be a debate within the party circles on the issue to re-define the role of religion and politics here today.Talking to mediapersons, Brar said that Congress had been working on the principle that politics and religion were two different things and had nothing to do with one another. But in view of the formidable alliance between religion-based political parties like the SAD and the BJP in this border state, the Congress should also re-define its yardstick on the issue, at least for Punjab, he added.Brar said that Congress would have to take steps to this effect, keeping in mind also the unprecedented growth of religious sects like Sucha Souda and Namdharis etc, which have started playing a significant role in the state politics.The Congress leader criticised Haryana Chief Minister Bansi Lal for passing derogatory remarks about the Sucha Souda sect. He said that no political leader had the the right to pass such remarks about a sect which stood for the general welfare of the people.Asked about the change of leadership in the state unit of Congress, Brar said that it was upto party supremo Sonia Gandhi, who had to take the decision on the basis of a report of a three-member committee, which recently visited Punjab to assess the reasons for the debacle of the party in the recent Lok Sabha elections. He, however, hinted that some changes in the unit were expected shortly.Brar also attacked Akalis by saying that they had backtracked from the promises made with the people. ``What to talk of getting something done, they have even failed to raise the pending issues of the state with the central government,'' he said, adding that it was now fully established that the Akalis raise the state's issues only when out of power. Brar also declared to launch a state level agitation against the atrocities by the Akali government.
