CHANDIGARH: With a year to go for the Punjab Assembly elections, political battle lines were drawn on Wednesday as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) used the Maghi Mela at Muktsar to signal their 2027 campaign launch.
Punjab CM Bhagwant Singh Mann addressed a political conference organised to mark Maghi and reiterated his government’s position on the recovery of 169 missing ‘saroops’ (sacred copies) of Guru Granth Sahib by a Special Investigation Team (SIT). He said the recovery was “a matter of duty rather than achievement”.
Mann stated that the SIT recovered the saroops from a religious place near Banga and that while records existed for only 30, the remaining 139 had no documentation. “No agency—neither the SGPC nor those who managed them—maintained proper records,” he said. The chief minister added that the saroops would be handed over to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) for installation, noting that publishing and record-keeping was the SGPC’s responsibility.
Accusing political opponents of exploiting religion for vested interests, Mann said such acts had bruised the psyche of common people and were “unpardonable sins”. Hinting at the Akali Dal, he alleged that some leaders were hand in glove with forces inimical to the Sikh Panth and Punjab.
Mann also announced that the Punjab government would make budgetary provisions for a Rs 1,000 monthly financial assistance scheme for every woman in the state in the upcoming budget. He claimed his government had fulfilled every commitment made to the people of Punjab and criticised previous governments for “waiting for their turn to plunder” after elections.
Later, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal sounded the party’s 2027 poll bugle at a separate conference. He promised to correct “historical injustices”, including diversion of Punjab’s water to Rajasthan through the Rajasthan canal. Among the poll pledges announced were free tubewell connections to all left-out farmers, Rs 10 lakh interest-free loans for youth, and waiver of road tax on motorcycles.
Badal said underground pipelines would be installed to ensure canal water reaches tail ends, lift pumps would be reinstalled, waterlogging tackled and land rights given to those cultivating riverbed lands. He also announced free land ‘takseem’ to demarcate individual ownership and permission to register land within Lal Dora areas.
Promising to end “gangster raj” and the drug menace, Badal said traffickers would not be allowed bail for five years. He also announced district-level medical colleges with 50 percent seats reserved for poor students, free education in medical and veterinary colleges, and a skill university to train 50,000 youth annually.
The BJP also held its maiden political conference at the Mela. Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini called for a “double-engine” government and claimed Haryana helped Punjab farmers during recent floods. Union Minister Ravneet Singh Bittu and Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar attacked the AAP government, with Bittu alleging Punjab’s debt had risen to Rs 4.17 lakh crore.
‘SIT recovered 169 saroops from a religious place’
Punjab CM said that the SIT recovered the 169 saroops from a religious place near Banga and that while records existed for only 30, the remaining 139 had no documentation. “No agency—neither the SGPC nor those who managed them—maintained proper records,” he said. The saroops would be handed over to the SGPC, the CM added.