Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a 20-year jail term for rape, was granted a three-week furlough on Monday, a reprieve that Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said had nothing to do with elections. The 21-day furlough comes just days ahead of the assembly polls in Punjab, where the sect has a large number of followers, particularly in Bathinda, Sangrur, Patiala and Muktsar.
Questioned by reporters, the Haryana CM denied any link between the sect leader's release from Sunaria jail in Rohtak district and the Punjab elections on February 20. “I think it is a coincidence and has no connection with the polls,” he said.
The sect chief is serving a 20-year jail term for raping two women disciples at his ashram in Sirsa, where the dera is headquartered. He was convicted by a special CBI court in Panchkula in August 2017. Sources said he has been granted furlough for meeting his family in Gurugram. He had applied for it to the Sunaria jail superintendent and later a recommendation from the concerned officials in Gurugram was also sought.
The Dera chief was brought out of the prison under heavy security. In the evening, he had reached the Gurugram ashram where his family was waiting for him. A police contingent was also deployed around the ashram earlier. “There are court decisions that if prisoner wants furlough after three years, he can take it,” Khattar, who heads the BJP-JJP government in the state, said. “It is his right and he has got it,” he said. Last year, the dera chief had been granted an emergency parole from sunrise to sunset to meet his ailing mother. He has also come out of jail on a couple of occasions medical treatment. However, this is for the first time that Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, 54, will remain out of prison for such a long period.
WILL RELEASE SWAY VOTERS?
The deras in Punjab and Haryana have a huge following of Dalits and the poor, and as such they influence serving 20-year term, out on 3-week furlough the elections. Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim has a large number of followers in Punjab and he was patronised by the political leaders and parties in Punjab and Haryana for nearly two decades because of his influence on his followers in the elections.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the subsequent Haryana Assembly polls, Dera Sacha Sauda had issued a public appeal for people to vote for the BJP. In the 2017 Punjab Assembly polls, the sect, which claims to have 60 million followers pan-India of which four million are in Punjab alone, supported the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP alliance, but the party lost to the Congress. However, the sect had supported the Congress in the previous Punjab Assembly polls in 2012 and 2007.
Followers of Dera Sacha Sauda, if they follow the edict, hold the key to 35-40 seats in Malwa, the largest political region of Punjab with 69 seats out of the state's 117. His sect has command over as many as 84 campuses, called satsang ghars across Punjab.
