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Tohra not to float new outfit

Senior Akali leader Gurcharan Singh Tohra on Saturday said he would not float a new party even if his detractors removed him as the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee president and blocked the induction of his loyalist Prem Singh Chandumajra into the Union Cabinet.

In a chat with newspersons in New Delhi, Tohra who has been the SGPC president for the past 25 years, said he would not quit the Akali Dal, with which he had been associated for the past six decades.

Speculation is rife in the party that Tohra, marginalised in his ongoing feud with Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal both in the SGPC and the Akali Dal, would form a parallel outfit to the ruling one.

Tohra, contrary to what was expected of him, said the Akali-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition would complete its full five-year term. He said he was morally bound to honour the people's mandate two years ago in favour of his joint leadership with Badal.

Earlier, Akali sources said, possibly in a bid to 'torpedo' the induction of Chandumajra, Lok Sabha member from Patiala, into the Cabinet that Badal has proposed the name of a Rajya Sabha MP for the post.

However, Badal's close ally and party general secretary Sukhdev Singh Dhinsa issued a press statement later saying the Akalis would boycott the Union Cabinet expansion to protest the non-acceptance of their demand to exclude the Udham Singh Nagar district from the proposed state of Uttrakhand.

UNI

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