Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal broke down at the meeting of the core committee of the Akali Dal a couple of days ago, much to the surprise of the senior members of the party.
Insiders said the 85-year-old five-time chief minister could not hold back his tears at the emergency meeting to discuss the developments related to a separate Sikh Gurdwara panel being constituted in Haryana. Badal broke his silence at the meeting starting off by lamenting the developments that were unfolding in the neighbouring Congress-ruled Haryana, which he said was hell-bent on splitting the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC).
Within no time, the octogenarian leader burst into tears.
A visibly shaken Badal, who faced adversaries during the Emergency and spent several years in jail, said “the chief minister’s post was meaningless for him if he could not prevent the bifurcation of the SGPC.”
As Badal wept, he went on to say that “he would even sacrifice himself at Akal Takht Sahib as he was finding it hard to tolerate the shocking developments,” insiders added.
Last time Badal was noticed crying in public glare was when his wife Surinder Kaur Badal died of cancer a few years ago.
During the meeting, Badal said it will be a part of Sikh history that the SGPC was divided during his term as the chief minister, which was unbearable for him.
The party pledged to “fight back” to counter the move. The Haryana government has already passed a legislation to form a separate Sikh panel that will run as many as 52 Sikh shrines in Haryana that are under the control of the SGPC.
On Wednesday, the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, which had earlier intervened to stall the move, passed an edict to excommunicate Haryana Sikh leaders Jagdish Jhinda, Didar Singh Nalvi and Haryana cabinet minister H S Chattha from the Sikh Panth for their acts to orchestrate a split in the SGPC.