Opposition Shiromani Akali Dal today accused the Punjab government of sacrilege by "morphing" a picture of Guru Gobind Singh in its advertisements issued on the 350th birth anniversary celebration of the tenth Sikh Guru.
However, a Punjab government spokesperson dubbed the charge as "ridiculous".
"The Congress government had committed sacrilege by swapping the face of the Sikh Guru with French statesman Napoleon Bonaparte in a computer-generated portrait recently published in newspapers during the commemoration of the 350th birth anniversary of the tenth Guru," SAD senior vice president and party spokesman, Daljit Singh Cheema said in a statement here.
The party also demanded strict action against the erring officials and the advertising agency.
"The face of the Sikh Guru was swapped with the French ruler. The origin of the said painting dated back to 1800 and came into existence almost after a century of Guru Sahib's period.
"I wonder why the Punjab government committed this grave sin of passing off the tampered picture of Napoleon as that of Guru Sahib's when there were plenty of the Sikh Guru's paintings available," Cheema said.
The SAD leader said the painting of a horse-mounted Napoleon Bonaparte was world famous and had been displayed at various museums and published in books as well.
"The Guru Sahib's painting published by the Punjab government shared many unmistakable resemblances with the (Napoleon Bonaparte's) painting. It has the same horse with similar face, body, hair on neck, tail, stirrup and other things as shown in the Napoleon painting. Even the clothes Guru Sahib was shown wearing in the painting were the same Napoleon had in the original painting," he claimed.
The SAD leader asked the Congress-led Punjab government to apologise and remove the picture from public places.
Reacting on the controversy, the state government spokesperson said the picture had been sourced from a Sikhism website, which was in public domain.
"It has neither been created nor modified by the government in any manner," an official release quoting the spokesperson said.
"All the pictures/illustrations being used over the years were the imaginative creation of artists, for illustrative purposes only," it said.
"The Akalis, who claim to be the custodians of Sikh religion, are obviously completely ignorant about these basic facts and have merely reacted on a media report without verifying its authenticity," said the spokesperson, demanding that it was SAD which needed to apologise to the people of Punjab for trying to politicise such a somber occasion.
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