Will snap ties with BJP if Centre doesn’t meet our demands: SAD’s Jagir Kaur

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) women wing president Bibi Jagir Kaur said on Monday if the Centre does not accede to their demands, especially the one pertaining to Goods and Service Tax (GST) exemption on the Golden Temple langar, the party will be forced to part ways with the BJP, its alliance partner in the state.

Interacting with mediapersons on the sidelines of a Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) meeting over the alleged deletion of Sikh gurus’ history from the Class 12 textbook of the Punjab School Education Board (PSEB), Kaur, who is also former SGPC chief, said they are ready to sacrifice everything for the interests of the Sikh community.

“The Akali Dal wins elections in Punjab on its own and not because of the BJP. For instance, Harsimrat Kaur Badal is a minister at the Centre due to her own calibre and the party’s clout. She is raising the demands of the community quite effectively,” she said.

Senior SAD leader and former Khemkaran MLA Virsa Singh Valtoha also reiterated the party’s demand for GST exemption on Golden Temple langar.

‘RSS an anti-Sikh force like Cong’

Valtoha said SAD’s alliance partner BJP’s mother organisation RSS is an anti-Sikh force like the Congress. He said this while reacting to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira’s remark relating CM Capt Amarinder Singh with the right-wing outfit over the issue of deletion of Sikh history from a history textbook.

He said while RSS secretly played role in changing the history of Sikhs or having termed Sikhism as part of Hinduism, the Congress is an apparent enemy of the community as it was one that demolished the Akal Takht and massacred Sikhs in 1984.

“The RSS lobby backed Capt Amarinder Singh in the 2017 Punjab vidhan sabha elections But the BJP never goes against Sikh tenets. The day when any BJP leader goes against the Sikhs, we will oppose it,” he claimed.