Chandigarh, July 22 — Raising a barrage of allegations at a press conference on Tuesday, Congress MLA and party national secretary Padma Shri Pargat Singh accused the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of obstructing justice in the 2015 sacrilege cases, saying that successive governments had deliberately delayed action to protect Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim.
“The Shiromani Akali Dal suppressed the sacrilege case to save the Dera chief. The BJP has always acted against Punjab’s interests, and now the AAP government has followed suit,” Pargat Singh said, adding that the matter is not just political, but about the “faith, identity, and pain” of Punjab.
Pargat alleged that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who also holds the Home portfolio, failed to act on the file seeking sanction to prosecute the Dera head. “I met Mann in December 2022 over the matter. The file was lying with him, yet no approval was given. Even in the Vidhan Sabha, the AAP leadership remained silent,” he said, questioning the silence of senior AAP figures like Aman Arora, Harpal Cheema, and Kultar Sandhwan who had once promised swift justice.
He further charged that not a single AAP MLA raised their voice in the Assembly on the matter. “The party that claimed to deliver justice within three months has not moved a step in over three years,” he said.
Pargat also pointed out that SAD chief Sukhbir Badal has never publicly taken Ram Rahim’s name. “His goal is to save his Bathinda seat, not to seek justice for Guru Sahib,” he said. He alleged that Sikh youth were wrongly implicated during the SAD rule, and justice was never the goal.
Turning his focus on the BJP, he claimed the party has always opposed Punjab’s interests. “The BJP not only shielded the Dera chief but encouraged the Akali Dal to do the same. The silence and complicity run deep,” Pargat charged.
Defending the Congress’s actions, he noted that under the previous Congress government, the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission was constituted, and even party leader Rahul Gandhi had promised accountability. He said action intensified under CM Charanjit Singh Channi during his short tenure, with the SIT visiting Sunaria Jail multiple times and filing a supplementary challan against Ram Rahim in the Faridkot court.
“The Congress even removed its own CM when it felt the investigation had slowed under Captain Amarinder Singh,” he said, pointing out that a group of MLAs had flagged the issue to the party high command to safeguard the process.
Pargat accused the AAP government of secretly transferring Dera-related cases out of Punjab. “Even senior advocate HS Phoolka had exposed this collusion,” he added.
Asserting that the sacrilege incidents began under the Akali Dal regime, he recounted that the Congress had filed a revocation report against the Dera chief for impersonating Guru Sahib before the 2012 elections, but he was acquitted in 2014. “What followed was the darkest chapter,” he said.
Calling on all parties to answer publicly, Pargat Singh said: “They must stop the blame game. The people of Punjab are watching. Until the culprits of sacrilege are punished, Punjab cannot heal.”
