Badal met Jagir Kaur secretly, allege reports

Badal met Jagir Kaur secretly, allege reports
AMIT SHARMA

LUDHIANA, FEBRUARY 9: Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal is learnt to have had a closed-door meeting with excommunicated SGPC President Bibi Jagir Kaur here late Tuesday evening. While police sources confirmed that Badal, who was on his way to Fatehgarh Sahib from Nawanshahr, spent time "somewhere" in the city, official sources did not confirm his meeting with Jagir Kaur.

Sources close to Jagir Kaur told The Indian Express that the meeting was earlier scheduled to be held at the guest house of a district forest office here but the venue was later shifted. It is learnt that during the 15-minute meeting, Jagir Kaur, who has gone into a retreat (ekantwaas), agreed to appear at the Akal Takht provided she was given an "equal chance" to present her case. Badal, sources said, agreed and assured her that he would soon call a meeting of the head priests of the five Takths.

During the short meeting, Jagir Kaur is also learnt to have raised the issue of Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Puran Singh'shukamnama, issued by him on January 25 through a fax message from Guna in Madhya Pradesh. She expressed her strong resentment over the "hukamnama" asserting that she had been excommunicated from the Panth without asking for an explanation, sources added.

However, the mystery over the whereabouts of SGPC chief continued even on the third day after her "short appearance" at a dera in Gurdwara Panjuana Sahib near Jagraon on Monday but sources in the Jagir Kaur camp indicated that she was contacted by Parkash Singh Badal on her new mobile (whose number is known only to three or four of her close aides) when she had shifted to another place in Jagraon area.

It is an open secret that Jagir Kaur has many a "close confidants" in Jagraon and its periphery villages which mainly include Sant Balbir Singh, head priest, gurudwara Panjuana Sahib, and Harsurinder Singh Gill, SGPC member.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued here on Tuesday, Sant Balbir Singh denied that he had any meeting with Jagir Kaurbut reiterated that "by issuing the hukamnama against the SGPC chief from a PCO in Guna, Giani Puran Singh has played with the sentiments of the Sikh sangat in Punjab."

He stated that since Jagir Kaur felt hurt with the "unjustified" action taken against her by the Akal Takht Jathedar, she decided to go into ekantwaas).