Dal Khalsa to boycott Lok Sabha polls 

Amritsar: The Dal Khalsa resolved to stay away from the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to be held on June 1 in Punjab. Presenting its viewpoint on Lok Sabha elections, the Dal Khalsa working president Paramjit Singh Mand released the party’s no-election policy document signed by the party’s fifteen-member executive committee led by Harpal Singh Cheema declaring elections can’t be the substitute for the right to self-determination. These elections cannot solve the Sikh problem nor change the Sikh position. 

While addressing the press conference, Mand said the solution to the Punjab dispute lies in a plebiscite under the UN and not elections under Indian dispensation. Dal Khalsa’s leader categorically affirmed that they are neither against democracy nor a democratic system. The organization envisages an arrangement like Quebec in Canada and Scotland in the United Kingdom, wherein it is possible to make the right to self-determination an election agenda, subsequently leading to the right to secede.

 Mand addressing the press conference further said the Sikh aspirations and lives were too dear to be sacrificed at the altar of such a game of elections where money, liquor, drugs, and even caste and class are key factors.