Sukhbir backed candidate elected as SGPC president
KI Singh/ royalpatiala.in/ Amritsar
For third time in a row, Gobind Singh Longowal once again elected as Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), President.
During the election, for SGPC president name , Longowal name is proposed and he got elected unopposed. Rajinder Singh Mehta is elected as senior vice president, Gurbax Singh Nawanshahar as junior vice president and Harjinder Singh Dhami as the general secretary of the SGPC.
Former Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) MLA from Dhuri , a former chairman of Sangrur district planning board and Shiromani Akali Dal Vice President Gobind Singh Longowal today once again elected as the 44th chief of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), the apex religious body of the Sikhs, during its annual general house meeting at Amritsar .
Longowal, a close aide of former SAD president Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, was earlier elected MLA from Dhanaula in 1985, 1997 and 2002. He also remained state minister in the Punjab Government from 1997 to 2002, in the Parkash Singh Badal’s government. In 2017 he was for the first time elected as Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), President.
Before becoming SGPC President Gobind Singh Longowal had defeated Congress backed Sanjha Morcha joint candidate Simar Partap Singh, grandson of former governor and chief minister of Punjab Surjit Singh Barnala, in the 2015 Dhuri bypoll, after Congress MLA Arvind Khanna resigned as Dhuri MLA.
The SGPC general house has 191 members. While 170 are elected by Sikh voters belonging to Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pardesh and Chandigarh. While incumbent six Sikh highest priests are members of the house, 15 are nominated. High priests, however, have no right to vote. It was estimated that around 155 of the 170 elected members of the SGPC house are aligned with SAD.
