Takht role sought to end Badal-Tohra row

Now settled in USA, he was convener of the Akali Dal in North America for a few months in 1997.

He said senior Akali leaders were becoming intolerant to the healthy criticism and asserted Tohra had cautioned Badal at the right time about the state of affairs in the party. “He had only conveyed sentiments of the people,” he said. At the same time, he felt the SGPC chief should not have aired his views in the press and rather talked to Badal directly. “Tohra is now being humiliated asif he has committed some crime,” he said adding the chief minister was forewarned about the present crisis.

Referring to the international situation, he said the need of the hour was stable government both at the Centre and in Punjab as Pakistan was always bent upon playing the mischief in the border state.

The Dal Khalsa and the Human Rights and Democracy has sided with Badal in this crisis saying the situation called for strengthening his hands. The two organisations stated in case no clear stand was taken, those forces which had betrayed the interests of the Panth and Punjabiat earlier would raise their heads again.

Dal Khalsa spokesman Kanwarpal Singh and Democracy Forum general secretary Karamjit Singh, in a joint statement, said the stand taken by Tohra had plunged the Punjabi politics in deep crisis but regretted the onslaught launched by the Badal supporters lacked political understanding.

They opposed the intervention of Akali Takht to end the feud as it would make the supreme temporalinstitution controversial. At the same time, they maintained any move to sack Tohra from the Akali Dal would prove suicidal for Badal.