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Punjab minister feels Kaur should quit

Punjab Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh said that he personally felt that Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Bibi Jagir Kaur should have resigned from the post after the CBI filed murder charges against her.

When asked why the Akali Dal was persisting with Kaur, Singh said, "Some of us in the Akali Dal thought that it would be wise to wait and see what the charges are. I personally believe it is wrong to involve a religious institution like the SGPC in a controversy. I feel she should have resigned on her own rather than wait to be replaced. Nobody is going to persuade her. This should come from her."

He refused to comment on the case against Kaur, who was granted anticipatory bail by the Punjab and Haryana High court.

"Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal had already said that the law will take its own course and nobody will interfere with the legal system. So I am not going to say anything on this matter. If the court in its wisdom thought that it was right to grant bail to Bibi Jagir Kaur, it is alright with us," Singh told rediff.com in an exclusive interview at his sector 9, B residence in Chandigarh.

He refused to comment on Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra's allegations that the Central Bureau of Investigation should also probe the role of the Badal administration in keeping Kaur away from the CBI. Tohra had charged the Badal administration with criminal conspiracy at a news conference in Chandigarh on Tuesday.

The former SGPC president Tohra had also said that Badal had lowered the prestige of the SGPC by allowing Bibi to continue even after she had been named as the principal accused by the CBI in daughter Harpeet Kaur's murder.

"I don't think it is proper for me to comment on what Tohra has said. In any case he keeps on levelling charges against us all the time," Singh said.

Asked when the Akali Dal would meet to decide the party candidate for the forthcoming SGPC presidentship, Singh said, "After chief minister return's from his trip abroad we will sit down and decide the date for a meeting in which certain important issues would be taken up?" he said.

He said that since the party has a comfortable majority it would not be a problem to install anyone as SGPC president. "Several names are already doing the rounds and I would not like to pick out a particular individual. First of all we have still to decide whether Bibi is going or not," he said.

The possible candidates are Jagdev Singh Talwandi, Sucha Singh Langa and Seva Singh Sekhone. Though Tohra has ruled out contesting once more, those in the know of Akali politics say that he could change his mind at the last minute and enter the fray to give Badal some heartaches.

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