New Delhi: Making a slew of promises including tablets for Sikh girls seeking higher education, the Shiromani Akali Dal on Saturday released its manifesto for the January 27 elections to Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC).
The SAD, which has only 12 members in the outgoing 46- member Sikh body (DSGMC) managing a host of religious and educational institutions in the national capital, is seeking to oust the Sarna group from power and wrest control. The Committee has five nominated members. SAD is not using its party symbol in these polls.
Releasing the manifesto, SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal called upon Sikhs to oust the present committee led by Sarna brothers and vote for SAD for all-round development of the community.
He promised to bring transparency in running Sikh religious and educational institutions in the national capital and said all contracts awarded by the present committee would be cancelled, probed and auctioned.
Among many of the promises made in the SAD manifesto is setting up of the Sikh Gurdwara Judicial Commission on the lines of the SGPC to run Sikh institutions in Delhi, establish Guru Tegh Bahadur University and the Guru Angad Dev Sports Institute, besides announcing various councils for uplifting education, health, finances and legal aid for Sikhs.
The party also promised legal aid to victims of 1984 anti-Sikh riots and to take up the case of citizenship for all Sikhs who fled from Afghanistan to seek refuge here.
If elected to power, it also announced free books to those children getting more than 75 per cent marks and introduction of NCERT books instead of private books in DSGMC schools, besides setting up placement department for providing employment opportunities to Sikh children passing out from DSGMC institutes. It also announced opening of a National Sikh Heritage Centre and Holocaust Museum in Delhi.
Badal said that "Sikhs in Delhi are fed up of the present regime and were ready for a change."
PTI
