Congress, AAP politicising sensitive issue of sacrilege, says Akali Dal

Chandigarh, July 15 (IANS) The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Tuesday asserted both the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab are politicising the sensitive issue of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib for their political ambitions even as it asked Leader of Opposition Partap Bajwa to tell why the previous Congress government did nothing to either probe or punish the perpetrators responsible for this heinous crime.

Reacting to Bajwa’s statement in the Vidhan Sabha in which the former claimed that the AAP government had failed to charge sheet both former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was the Home Minister, in the cases of sacrilege of 2015, Akali Dal Vice-President Parambans Romana condemned Bajwa for showing double standards on this sensitive issue.

Reminding Bajwa that he had held protests along with Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and demanded the sacrilege case be transferred to the CBI in a memorandum to the President, Romana said, “Bajwa, however, changed colours once the Congress formed the government in the state in 2017.”

He said Bajwa remained a mute spectator when the Congress government got the sacrilege cases transferred back to the state from the CBI and did not conduct any investigation on the basis of law or facts.

The SAD leader said like the AAP government now, the Congress government also held special sessions of the Vidhan Sabha with the sole purpose of doing politics on this issue.

Speaking about the party’s stand, Romana said that then Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had transferred the sacrilege cases to the CBI in the interest of justice. He said the conduct of both Congress and AAP governments revealed that they did not want any justice in the sacrilege cases. He also exposed Bajwa for praising AAP suspended legislator Kunwar Vijay Partap Singh.

“It is a matter of record that the Punjab and Haryana High Court snubbed the investigation carried out by Kunwar Vijay in his role as a police officer and held that it was a dangerous cocktail of politics, religion and police administration.”

He said following this observation, Kunwar Vijay quit the police force and joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The Akali leader also asserted that the Congress was least qualified to speak on the issue of sacrilege.

“This is the party which attacked Sri Darbar Sahib with tanks and mortars and destroyed Sri Akal Takht Sahib.” He said the Congress was also responsible for the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of the country. Romana said similarly, AAP legislator Naresh Yadav had been convicted for being responsible for the sacrilege of the holy Quran in Malerkotla.

He said instead of showing Yadav the door, AAP had rewarded him with a party ticket in the recent Vidhan Sabha elections.

“The AAP government in Punjab has also done nothing to punish the sacrilege perpetrators and has been busy politicising this issue,” he added.

After three hours of intense debate on allegations and counter-allegations, the Vidhan Sabha unanimously decided to refer the highly emotive Punjab Prevention of Offences Against Holy Scriptures Bill of 2025 to a select committee for consultation with all stakeholders.

On the suggestion of both the treasury and the opposition benches, Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan said the select committee would gather public opinion on the Bill and return with recommendations within six months.

Earlier, the Chief Minister proposed a four-month timeline. The Bill proposes stringent penalties for sacrilege-related offences, prescribing a minimum sentence of 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment, along with fines ranging from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh. The holy scriptures referred to in the Bill are Guru Granth Sahib or extracts thereof, the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran and the Bible.

--IANS

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