Harjinder Singh Dhami defeats Jagir Kaur by 74 votes to retain SGPC president’s post 

Harjinder Singh Dhami defeated Jagir Kaur by 74 votes to win the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) president’s post in Amritsar on Monday.

Of the 142 votes, Dhami got 107 and Jagir Kaur 33 votes. Two votes were declared invalid.

Dhami was re-elected president of the gurdwara body, also known as the Sikh mini parliament, for the fourth time in a row. He was the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate, while Jagir Kaur was nominated by opposition and rebel Akali Dal leaders.

Besides the president, the SGPC general house elected Raghujit Singh Virk as senior vice-president, Baldev Singh Kalyan as junior vice-president and Shamsher Singh Mandwala as general secretary.

The following were elected executive committee members: Harjinder Kaur, Amrik Singh Vachhoa, Surjit Singh Tugalwal, Paramjit Singh Khalsa, Surjit Singh Gari, Baldev Singh Kayampuri, Daljit Singh Bhinder, Sukh Harpreet Singh Rode, Ravinder Singh Khalsa, Jaswant Singh Purain and Paramjit Singh Raipur.

The general elections of the SGPC were conducted after 13 years.

SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who was declared ‘tankhaiya (guilty of religious misconduct)’ for the mistakes committed by the party and its government from 2007 to 2017, stayed away from the campaign for the contentious elections this time.

The outcome of the SGPC president’s election is expected to come as a much-needed shot in the arm of the SAD chief, who has been lying low since successive poll defeats, including the recent Lok Sabha elections in Punjab.

Of the total 191 members of the SGPC general house, 170 members are elected by Sikh voters in the general elections, 15 are co-opted, five are sitting (jathedars) heads of Sikh temporal seats and one is head granthi of Golden Temple. The jathedars and head granthis don’t have the right to vote.

Since some members are abroad, nearly 140 members were present at the session that started at noon on Monday.