The Punjab government on Tuesday offered to hold 550th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Nanak Dev at Sultanpur Lodhi under the aegis of the Akal Takht to break the logjam over the issue with the the SGPC.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday spoke to the Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh on phone while his cabinet colleagues Charanjit Singh Channi and Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa met him to convey the state government's proposal in Amritsar, an official release said here.
The ministers told the Sikhs' temporal seat head, the state government felt that in keeping with the importance of the historic occasion and Guru Nanak's philosophy of 'Sanjhi Varta' (collective voice), the Sikh community should stand together for the celebrations next month.
Earlier, the Sikh Gurdwara Prabhandak Committee (SGPC) has decided to hold the main event in a stadium near Gurdwara Ber Sahib in Sultanpur Lodhi in Kapurthala district on November 12, while the state government wants to hold the function near a 'tent city' coming up there.
The Akal Takht Jathedar said he will convene a meeting of all the five Jathedars next week to finalise the programme for the main functions, slated to be held on November 11-12 in Sultanpur Lodhi, where millions of devotees are expected to converge to pay their respects to the first Sikh Guru on the historic occasion.
As per the proposal, no political speeches would be allowed at the main function, during which only the Jathedars of the five Takhts, the Head Granthi of Darbar Sahib, the Prime Minister (or any other senior representative of the central government), former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Chief Minister and SGPC president would be present on the stage.
As a humble Sikh, Amarinder had suggested all Sikhs to bow before the Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of Sikhs, and come together under its aegis for the blessed event, the release said.
No Sikh should have any problem in celebrating the 550th 'Prakash Purb' under the Akal Takht, since it is the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, he felt.
Further, the Chief Minister was of the opinion that the sacredness of the occasion demanded that there should be no appearance of division or confrontation among the Sikhs in Punjab for the lakhs of pilgrims coming to attend the events from across the world, according to Channi and Randhawa.
The state government had no issues with the SGPC conducting other related events separately, inside gurdwara premises, the ministers said.
The ministers later said they had, on behalf of the Chief Minister, urged the Jathedar to direct the SGPC to support the official events and not waste Rs 12-15 crore of the Sikh community's money on setting up a separate stage, especially when the state government had already developed the necessary infrastructure for the key programmes.
This money could be more usefully employed in promotion of religion which was one of the prime objectives of the SGPC, said the ministers, adding that two separate events from two stages would also confuse the pilgrims.
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