Gurdwara Amendment Bill’s passing deemed illegal by Mahila Kisan Union

The Mahila Kisan Union (MKU) has declared the recent Sikh Gurdwara Amendment Bill illegal. The Bill was passed by the Punjab Assembly to amend the central Sikh Gurdwara Act of 1925, allowing for the broadcast of free Gurbani from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. However, the MKU claims that the state government cannot legally introduce such an amendment and that it would not be approved by the Governor. The MKU’s president Rajwinder Kaur Raju stated that the Chief Minister should have consulted the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee or the Darbar Sahib administration before making any decisions about Gurbani telecasts. Kaur Raju claimed that the Chief Minister’s actions were an attempt to divert attention from the demands of the farmers by interfering with Gurdwara management. MKU also alleged that the Chief Minister had illegally amended the Gurdwara Act without constitutional rights and had created administrative issues for the SGPC to administer gurdwaras in Chandigarh, Himachal, and Rajasthan, besides Punjab. They stated that Bhagwant Mann’s political gimmick would prove worthless and that the Sikh ‘qaum’ would never forgive him for undermining the authority of SGPC, the ‘mini parliament’ of the Sikh panth, to manage and control the gurdwaras.