www.WeeklyVoice.com PUNJABA-16 | Friday, December 29, 2017

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CHANDIGARH: The SAD

on Sunday accused the Punjab

government of sacrilege over the

�morphing� of a picture of 10th

Sikh Guru Gobind Singh by using

one of French Emperor Napoleon

Bonaparte, a charge dismissed by

the authorities as �ridiculous�.

A computer-generated swap-

ping of faces was done for the

picture used in an advertisement

released by the Public Relations

Department to commemorate the

350th birth anniversary of the

Sikh Guru, the Shiromani Akali

Dal said and demanded strict ac-

tion against the erring oficials and the advertising agency con-

cerned. SAD Senior Vice Presi-

dent Daljit Singh Cheema said

the picture shown as that of Guru

Gobind Singh in the advertise-

ment was actually of Napoleon.

�An image of Guru Gobind

Singh ji�s face was swapped with

that of the French ruler through

computer on the picture. The

said painting dates back to 1800,

almost a century after Guru Sa-

hib�s period. I wonder why the

Congress government committed

this grave sin of passing off the

tampered picture as that of Guru

Sahib when plenty of the Gurus�

paintings are available,� Cheema

said in a statement here.

�The painting has the same

horse, with resemblance to face,

body, mane, tail, stirrups and

other things shown in the Napo-

leon�s painting. Even the clothes

Guru Gobind Singh ji is shown

wearing in the morphed picture

are the same as Napoleon�s in

the original painting,� the Akali

leader claimed.

He sought an immediate apolo-

gy from the government over the

alleged morphing and removal of

the painting from media and pub-

lic places.

In response, the government

rejected the charge of sacrilege

vis-a-vis advertisements issued in

connection with the 350th birth

anniversary celebrations of Guru

Gobind Singh.

CHANDIGARH: Former

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

and Punjab Chief Minister Ama-

rinder Singh on Sunday offered

prayers at the Takht Keshgarh

Sahib gurdwara in the Sikh holy

town of Anandpur Sahib to mark

the conclusion of the 350th birth

anniversary celebrations of tenth

and inal Sikh master, Guru Gobind Singh.

The shrine, considered second

most holiest in Sikh religion after

the Golden Temple in Amritsar,

is where Guru Gobind Singh an-

nounced the birth of the Khalsa

Panth on April 13, 1699.

Manmohan Singh said the

life and ideology of Guru

Gobind Singh showed the path

to strengthen the ethos of har-

mony, religious tolerance, peace

and brotherhood. �Guru Gobind

Singh never discriminated against

any religion, but respected all hu-

man beings, regardless of colour,

caste and creed,” said the irst Sikh Prime Minister (2004-2014)

of the country.

Amarinder Singh announced

the revival of the Anandpur Sahib

Urban Development Authority.

He also announced the setting up

of a skills university in Anandpur

Sahib, to be named after Guru

Gobind Singh.

Punjab Elections Re-Aligned State Politics

Ire Over Portrait Sacrilege Manmohan, Amarinder AtAnandpur Sahib

By Jaideep Sarin

CHANDIGARH: It was wide-

ly expected to be a crowning mo-

ment for the Aam Aadmi Party in

Punjab this year, but it was the

Congress which took top hon-

ours. The assembly election re-

sults in March clearly redeined the political space in the state.

Hitherto, Punjab was happy

to see a direct contest between

the Congress and the Shiromani

Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party

(SAD-BJP) alliance for the past

few decades. The emergence of

the AAP in the state�s political

scene this time saw a re-align-

ment of political forces. The

three-cornered contest, for the

irst time in Punjab, saw the Akali Dal-BJP alliance decimated.

The Congress, nine months

into power, swept the municipal

elections in the state in Decem-

ber. The opposition alleged booth

capturing, intimidation and mis-

use of power by the Congress.

While the SAD-BJP combine

won a few wards in the munici-

pal polls as a face saver, the AAP

clearly lost the trust of the voters.

The AAP which, at one stage

last year, was predicted to sweep

the assembly polls, ended up be-

ing the main opposition in the

assembly even though it was the

party’s irst outing in the assem-

bly elections. The party, which

seemed to have peaked elector-

ally a little too early, managed to

win 20 seats in the 117-member

assembly and even got the post of

Leader of Opposition (LoP).

The AAP�s performance, even

though the voters denied an out-

right victory and shot at power

in a full-ledged state outside of Delhi for the irst time, ended up with a respectable tally compared

to the mere 15 seats won by the

Akali Dal-BJP combine, which

had ruled the state for 10 years

(2007-2017).

The re-alignment in Punjab�s

political space was in the context

that it was for the irst time that all seats saw a three-cornered

contest with the AAP putting up

a ight on a number of seats to the traditional rivals -- the Congress

and the Akali Dal.

Even though the older parties

had tried to dismiss the AAP as

a �non-phenomena� in the run-up

to the assembly polls, the party

managed to hold its own.

The insistence of the AAP cen-

tral leadership on remote control-

ling the Punjab campaign with

leaders from other states, lack of

faith of local leadership, not be-

ing able to project a chief minis-

terial face, the breakdown of talks

with cricketer-turned-politician

Navjot Singh Sidhu (who ended

up in the Congress after leaving

the BJP), questions over choice of

candidates and inighting pushed the AAP away from power.

AAP leaders, including na-

tional convener and Delhi Chief

Minister Arvind Kejriwal, were

accused of being associated with

radical elements, including for-

mer terrorists. The ground reality

in Punjab, which saw a bloody

phase of terrorism between 1981

and 1995, is that not too many

people are aligned to the radical

ideology.

It was here that the AAP con-

ceded ground to the Congress,

which managed to beneit with Sikh and Hindu votes coming into

its kitty. The Sikh vote, which

was the stronghold of the Akali

Dal, and the Hindu vote in urban

areas which used to side with the

BJP, went to the Congress with a

lot of resentment among the peo-

ple against the decade-long Akali

Dal-BJP rule.

It was the virtual hatred towards

the Badal family (of former Chief

Minister Parkash Singh Badal)

on issues of corruption, drugs,

mis-governance and maia rule and the law-defying writ of the

��Halqa-incharge�� that the Akalis

promoted, which led to the deci-

mation of the SAD-BJP alliance.

While the Congress won an im-

pressive 77 seats in the 117-mem-

ber assembly, it was the Malwa

belt which helped the party romp

home in style. The Congress won

40 out of the 69 seats in the Mal-

wa belt -- the region south of the

river Sutlej and considered agri-

culturally fertile.

The AAP was considered the

strongest in the Malwa belt, since

it had won four Lok Sabha seats

in the 2014 parliamentary elec-

tions and had led in 34 assembly

seats at that time, but it could

manage a win only in 18 seats

in the assembly polls. Two more

seats in the belt were won by

AAP ally, Lok Insaaf Party.

The Congress dominated the

other two regions of Punjab

-- Majha and Doaba. The party

swept the entire Majha belt.

2017 IN RETROSPECT