Chandigarh: Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh has underlined the need for determining the minority status of communities at the national level and not at the state level. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Singh has said he has learnt that the Supreme Court will take up the matter of Sikh minority institutions in Punjab on a priority basis.
The Punjab Lok Congress chief, whose party is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said, "The main contention of the petitioner is that Sikhs are not a minority in Punjab and therefore, these institutions cannot be accorded the minority status." "It implies that the minority status of a community should be decided statewise and not at the national level," he said in the letter, while adding that at present, the minority status of various communities is decided nationally and rightly so.
"In case it is done at the state level, there will be serious socio-political and even techno-legal implications. It may raise discord and avoidable unrest in the society. The states may not have accurate data and they may have different interpretations of the available data. "The possibility of the states applying varying timelines to data usage to suit local socio-political imperatives can also not be ruled out. If that happens, apart from Centre- state discord, inter-state and intra-state tensions may rise, polarising the society to the detriment of national integrity," Singh warned.
Making an earnest appeal to the PM, he said, "It is strongly felt that the existing system of determining the minority status of various communities in the country at the national level should continue." "You may well appreciate that the system has not only maintained consistency and uniformity with periodic interventions of the Union government, but has served well in maintaining peace and amity among various communities. Punjab is a singular example in this regard. The change, if any, will give miscreants a chance to raise a red flag," the former chief minister said. "I am confident that you would have the matter examined appropriately and advise the concerned ministries of the Government of India to defend the present system and the minority status of Sikh institutions in Punjab and other states," he wrote in his letter to Modi. (PTI)
