Chandigarh: Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee chief Paramjit Singh Sarna has urged SAD MPs to shun petty party politics and enhance their global image as nationalists by supporting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s nuclear deal with the USA. It is a time for the Akalis in general and the Sikhs in particular to rally behind an honest and committed Dr Manmohan Singh whose elevation as Prime Minister had given the community respectability worldwide. Though the present ruling group in the DSGMC, led by Sarna brothers, has been known for its tilt towards the Congress, the letter of Paramjit Singh Sarna appreciating SAD’s policies and programmes has come as a pleasant surprise to SAD workers. For a long time, Sarna-led group had confronted Parkash Singh Badal not only in the Delhi gurdwara politics but also in the Panthic affairs.

In a letter addressed to all SAD MPs, Paramjit Singh Sarna, reminded the SAD of unfortunate events that the Sikh community had faced in 1980s. “These incidents culminated into Operation Bluestar. The anti-Sikh riots of 1984 presented them in a light completely unknown to them. The patriotism of Sikhs was put under a scanner and the community remained at the receiving end in India and abroad for quite sometime. However, the national forces asserted after sometime and the opinion makers loudly admitted that the Sikhs had been wronged,” writes Sarna in his letter.

He says: “The Shiromani Akali Dal always stands firm for the respectability and prestige of the Panth. A similar situation had arisen at the time of nomination of Giani Zail Singh as presidential candidate by the Congress. Even at that time the SAD played a very constructive, rather commendable role in the national interest in general and Panthic interest in particular by supporting his candidature.”

Sarna has also cautioned the Akalis against those “anti-national forces that are always active in damaging the national and minority interests to establish their so-called nationality to achieve their own vested interests. In the present national crisis, nationalist forces have an opportunity to prove their national, secular and Panthic ideology by supporting the most learned, honest and dedicated visionary statesman, Dr Manmohan Singh, who has established Sikh identity globally. The proposed nuclear deal with the US is beyond any doubt in the larger interest of the country. All of us as a minority community should think and support him to enhance the image of the Sikh community in India and abroad, says Sarna.

The DSGMC chief also reminds Akalis that the Shiv Sena, in spite of being a constituent of the NDA, openly supported Pratibha Patil in the last presidential elections. “I take this opportunity to appeal to you to consider this very important fact by rising above the party politics by thinking as a national-secular Sikh and extending support to Dr Manmohan Singh in Parliament,” adds Sarna.

Courtesy: Tribune News Service