Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday announced the setting up of a committee comprising senior leaders of his party to coordinate with regional and other like-minded parties in the country to “ensure the setting up of a genuinely federal structure in the country.”
The decision was taken at a meeting of the party’s core committee here. Badal’s principal advisor Harcharan Singh Bains said the high-powered panel would be chaired by the party’s Secretary General Balwidner Singh Bhunder and would also include Prem Singh Chandumajra, Manjinder Singh Sirsa and Naresh Gujral as members.
The panel would coordinate with the leaders of other regional parties as well as those which have been consistently advocating more fiscal and political autonomy to the states.
Badal told the core committee that the need for strengthening the federal structure of the country has become more pronounced in the wake of “threats” being posed to it in recent times. The SAD has always been at the forefront of the fight against “authoritarian” tendencies in the country, he said in a statement here.
“We are a country with a rich regional, cultural, religious and lingual diversity and our strength lies in realizing the full potential of the creative synergy of cooperative federalism as envisioned by the founding fathers of Constitution,” said Badal. He also formed a special committee to fight for getting official language status to the Punjabi language in Jammu and Kashmir.
The committee has Nirmal Singh Kahlon, Prem Singh Chandumajra and Manjinder Singh Sirsa as its members.
Meanwhile, the SAD also urged the central government to immediately convene a joint meeting of all stakeholders in the ongoing farmers’ struggle including representatives of farmers, farm labourers, shopkeepers and all political parties to resolve the crisis arising out of the “controversial” Acts passed recently by Parliament.
A meeting of the core committee of the party also set up a three-member committee to coordinate with farmers organisations and others on the future course of action and strategy on getting the farmers’ demands fulfilled.
The Shiromani Akali Dal had quit the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) over the farm bills issue, the third major party to walk out of the BJP-led coalition in the last couple of years. (PTI)
