Punjab Congress Chief Urges PM Modi, Amit Shah To Allow Sikh Pilgrims To Nankana Sahib On Prakash Utsav

Chandigarh: Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring on Wednesday urged the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the union Home Minister Amit Shah to allow Sikh pilgrims to visit Nanakana Sahib on the ‘Prakash Utsav’ (birth anniversary) of Guru Nanak Dev, falling in the month of November.

Warring said in a statement here that the decision conveyed by the Union government to Punjab and other states on September 12, asking them not to process applications for the pilgrimage to Nankana Sahib seems to have been taken without taking into consideration the sentiments of the stakeholders.

The PCC president observed that it clearly appears to be a purely administrative decision devoid of any respect for the sentiments and sensitivities of the Sikhs, who wait for this occasion every year to visit the birthplace of their first Guru.

Senior Congress leader, Partap Singh Bajwa, also the leader of opposition in Punjab assembly, also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him for permission for Sikh pilgrims to visit Nankana Sahib gurdwara in Pakistan on Guru Nanak Jayanti.

Bajwa held that it is disheartening to note that age-old traditions, faith, and spiritual practices of lakhs of Sikhs are repeatedly sacrificed in the name of hostility between two governments.

It is particularly ironical that while pilgrims can be stopped, international cricket and sporting exchanges continue unhindered—even if through neutral venues, he held.

Pertinently, Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann had also recently objected to the decision of the Government of India to cancel the visit of Sikh pilgrims to Pakistan on the occasion of Prakash Utsav.

Mann demanded the reopening of the Kartarpur Sahib Corridor and permission for Sikh pilgrims to pay obeisance at their most revered shrines – Kartarpur Sahib and Nankana Sahib and alleged that ``when the Cricket Board is in the hands of Home Minister Amit Shah’s son, holding a match with Pakistan suddenly becomes a compulsion for the Indian government’’.