Dera Sacha Sauda chief, rape convict Gurmeet Singh walks out of jail on 20-day parole
Chandigarh (PTI): Dera Sacha Sauda chief and rape convict Gurmeet Singh on Wednesday walked out of the Sunaria jail in Haryana's Rohtak after he was granted a 20-day parole.
During his temporary release period, Singh will stay at the Dera ashram in Barnawa in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat.
He came out of jail under tight security this morning after his release on parole, an official said.
The Haryana government has granted a 20-day parole to Singh while barring him from taking part in election-related activities, making speeches and staying in the state during the period.
Singh is serving a 20-year sentence given in 2017 for raping two of his disciples. The Dera chief and three others were also convicted in 2019 for the murder of a journalist more than 16 years ago.
He had sought a 20-day parole ahead of the October 5 Haryana Assembly polls.
According to the parole conditions, the sect chief will not take part in any election-related activity or deliver public speeches and will stay out of Haryana during the period.
He will stay at Dera ashram in Uttar Pradesh's Barnawa (Baghpat) during the period.
The Dera chief had said that he wanted to stay in Baghpat during the parole if granted.
The jail department had recently forwarded the Dera chief's parole plea to the office of the Haryana Chief Electoral Officer in view of the Model Code being in place for the assembly polls.
Chief Electoral Officer Pankaj Agarwal had said on Monday that the Haryana government may consider Singh's parole subject to the correctness of facts mentioned in his parole plea and satisfying other conditions with respect to the Model Code of Conduct for the elections.
Haryana goes to polls on October 5 and the results will be declared on October 8.
In the past, some of Singh's paroles and furloughs have coincided with the polls in Punjab, Haryana and neighbouring states.
The opposition parties had criticised the grant of relief to Singh.
Earlier in August this year, Singh was granted a 21-day furlough. He was granted three weeks' furlough from February 7, 2022 barely two weeks before the Punjab Assembly polls.
In May, the high court acquitted Singh and four others in the 2002 murder of the sect's former manager Ranjit Singh, citing "tainted and sketchy" investigations in the matter.
A special CBI court had sentenced them to life imprisonment in the nearly 20-year-old murder case.
Singh had been held guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his co-accused.
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Post poll TN alliances divided in supporting TVK
Chennai (PTI): In a changed political atmosphere in Tamil Nadu with no single political party having a simple majority to form the government post the Assembly election, opinion is divided among the allies led by the Dravidian majors in extending external support to Vijay-led TVK in government formation.
Both the DMK and AIADMK are at unease as the Congress and also a section in the AIADMK express willingness to extend external support to Vijay-led Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagtam in forming the government.
Post poll, the TVK's political prospects appear to impact alliances led by both the Dravidian majors in a different manner, triggering a speculation of a split.
Leema Rose Martin, who won from Lalgudi on an AIADMK ticket, has stated that talks were underway on extending support to the TVK. Her son-in-law Aadhav Arjuna, who won from Villivakkam is TVK's general secretary.
On May 5, former AIADMK minister O S Manian, emerging from his meeting with party general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, stated that AIADMK would not support TVK in forming the government.
The AIADMK, which finished third in the elections with 47 seats has cancelled its meeting of MLAs designate on Wednesday amidst a difference in extending external support to the TVK, which won 108 seats, including two seats by its founder Vijay.
As Vijay is gearing up for his swearing-in on May 7, the police have tightened security at his residence here. The party has lodged its MLA-elect at a resort in Mamallapuram and has simultaneously engaged in talks with the Congress and AIADMK, a source said.
The DMK that won 59 seats on its own, has convened a meeting of its newly elected legislators on May 7 evening and the party is likely to elect the youth wing secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin, who won from Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni as its legislature party leader.
Congress general secretary K C Venugopal admitted that TVK chief Vijay requested the Congress for support to form the government.
"The INC is clear that the mandate in Tamil Nadu is for a secular government, committed to protecting the Constitution in letter and spirit. The INC is determined not to allow the BJP and its proxies to run the government of Tamil Nadu in any manner. Thiru Vijay has also spoken about drawing inspiration from Perunthalaivar Kamaraj," he said.
Accordingly, the Congress leadership has directed the TNCC to take a final decision on Vijay’s request, keeping in view the sentiments of the state as reflected in the electoral verdict, Venugopal said in a statement.
DMK spokesperson Saravanan Annadurai slammed the Congress decision and said the move to ally with TVK, pledging the support of its five MLAs to the party, was tantamount to "backstabbing the DMK and the people of Tamil Nadu."
"They have betrayed the mandate given by the people. Even before the ink on the returning officer’s signature on the victory certificate has dried, they have chosen to go ahead with this alliance," he told PTI.
The most important question was who took this "foolhardy decision, and how is it going to backfire on the Congress?" he asked.
"I don’t think they had any serious deliberation on this. The larger issue is their opposition to the BJP, which is their ideological enemy. We have supported the Congress throughout. It was our leader M K Stalin, who named Rahul Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate when the BJP and RSS were criticising him. And now, within a day, they say they are supporting TVK. This is not the mandate of the people of Tamil Nadu,” Saravanan said.
The Congress' exit from its long-standing alliance with the DMK will be a significant moment in the political scenario of the state, commentator and political analyst Sumanth Raman said.
The Congress may be betting on the TVK as a long-term partner option, but that comes with risks, as the TVK is as yet an unknown quantity, he said.
"For the DMK, if the TVK+Congress becomes the choice of the minorities as it well could, it is an existential threat. It was the minority vote that gave the DMK alliance a 12%-15% cushion in the polls. If that goes, their chances of winning drops dramatically," Raman said on 'X.'
The Congress won 5 seats. However, DMK's other allies, the IUML, VCK, CPI and CPI (M) and DMDK have categorically stated that they would not support TVK.
As of now, the TVK requires the support of 11 MLAs to attain a simple majority of 118 to form the government.
The PMK, which won 4 seats and AMMK one - both allies of AIADMK - have not announced their decision yet.
"AIADMK’s real post-result drama may not be outside the party, but inside it. Whispers from the west and north suggest that a Coimbatore hand and a Villupuram voice may soon ask the question everyone is avoiding: Is it time to save the party from the leadership, before the cadre are forced to do it themselves? In politics, coups don’t begin with slogans. They begin with silence, phone calls and “review meetings,” Aspire Swaminathan, who is credited with founding the AIADMK IT wing in 2014, said on 'X.'
He has resigned from the AIADMK in 2021 and now acts an as independent political analyst.
