Ambala, November 11 (R. Singh):- Haryana Sikh Forum President Jasdeep Singh Bedi, in a statement issued here today, said that the BJP’s failure to fulfil its promise of establishing a Guru Gobind Singh University in the Ambala Lok Sabha constituency would be strongly highlighted during the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections. He said the objective of raising this issue was to expose the true face of the BJP before the people.
Haryana Sikh Forum President Bedi said that on February 12, 2017, the then Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal had announced the establishment of a university in the name of Guru Gobind Singh Ji in the Ambala Lok Sabha constituency, but the project had still not been completed. Bedi said that the Haryana Government had organised a state-level religious gathering in Karnal on February 12, 2017, to commemorate the 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. At the gathering, the then Chief Minister Manohar Lal had announced that a university in the name of Guru Gobind Singh Ji would be established in Ambala, Panchkula or Yamunanagar.
Bedi said that even before Chief Minister Manohar Lal’s announcement, the Bharatiya Janata Party had promised in its 2014 election manifesto to establish a Guru Gobind Singh University in Ambala or Panchkula. After the BJP government came to power in Haryana in 2014, Sikh organisations in the state began pressuring the government to fulfil its promise, following which Chief Minister Manohar Lal made the announcement. However, the promise remained unfulfilled.
Jasdeep Singh Bedi said that, keeping in view the Punjab Assembly elections scheduled for next year, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini had been regularly visiting Punjab and participating in various programmes. Several Sikh leaders associated with the BJP were making every possible effort through the media to portray the party as pro-Sikh. He said that if these leaders had pressured the Haryana BJP government to fulfil its announcement of establishing the Guru Gobind Singh University at the earliest, they would have earned great respect within the Sikh community, and the BJP’s prospects of gaining support in the Punjab Assembly elections would have increased manifold.
