Who could be GRRS’s successor to take over reins of Dera Sacha Sauda?
The imprisonment of Dera Chief in the rape case looks to be the beginning of his bad luck….
By HARISH MONGA DIDO
With the award of 20 years jail sentence by the CBI judge Jagdeep Singh in the rape case, which will go consequently, the question now is as to who will be Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s successor to take over reins of Dera Sacha Sauda?
Will be it his son Jasmeet Singh or Honeypreet Insaan the so-called daughter of GRRS, who takes care of the day-to-day affairs of the Dera?
For the information of readers, Jasmeet – who is known as Shehzada in the dera premises – son of Ram Rahim is married to former Punjab Congress Legislator Harminder Singh Jassi anointed him successor in 2007. Dera Chief will have to break a convention which specifies succession outside the family.
Going by the background, the first head of Dera Sacha Sauda Shah Mastana Balochistani, who set up the ashram on 23 April, 1948 and taught meditation for a dozen years, chose Shah Satnam, a family outsider, as his successor before his death.
Shah Satnam initiated 1.1 million people into meditation before passing on the baton to 23-year-old Gurmeet Ram Rahim, a 10th standard dropout and a married boy from Gursarmodia, town of Sriganganagar (Rajasthan).
There are allegations that Shah Satnam was in favour of appointing an educated person as his heir but Ram Rahim was pushed through to the top by his favourites in the management.
So far, Honeypreet Insaan, so-called daughter and also known as ‘Papa’s Angel’, looks to be on the top of the list. Added here, Honeypreet is a divorcee. She was married to a businessman – Vishwas Gupta from Fatehabad, who too was a follower of the Dera. He wound up his business and started living in the Dera for a long by investing all his wealth.
Later on, Gupta suspected his wife – Honeypreet – of having illicit relations with Gurmeet Ram Rahim and even alleged this in a court. Afterwards, Gurmeet Ram Rahim and Gupta had a compromise and the latter withdrew the court case. Gupta remarried and is father of a daughter now.
Since then Honeypreet is living with GRRS like shadow and even during pronouncement of the judgement by the CBI Judge Jagdeep Singh in the rape case, she was seen with the Dera Chief upto the shifting to Rohtak Jail from Panhkula in the helicopter but since then she is out of the scene.
She is however, considered the number two candidate to head DSS. If Gurmeet Ram Rahim decides to overlook Jasmeet and Honeypreet Singh, the next option could be to choose a Manager to head the Dera.
Another name is of Vipassana Insaan, who came into limelight when an appeal through a video was aired to maintain peace. She also attributed violence to anti-social elements who according to her infiltrated Dera followers.
So far as Manager is concerned, there had been number of administrative groups comprising 45-member Committee with its member of different states besides constituting of separate groups to look after the different departments like general, political, youth, green force and women wings. At the lower level, each block is handled by a 7-member team.
After the announcement of sentence to Dera Chief, his enemy like Ram Kumar Bishnoi who left the Dera in 1990 and filed a petition in the court demanding enquiry into the disappearance of Faqir Chand, a manager of the Dera which was later on closed citing lack of evidence and appeal to these orders is scheduled in September.
There are less possibilities to run the affairs of Dera from the jail premises.
Since the Dera has tens of millions of followers and associated with more than hundred social welfare activities like running of schools, colleges, technical education, hospital, market complelx, factories, cinema hall, canteens, agriculture land in a dozen states.
Frankly speaking, if the government decides to seal the Dera and sell off the properties to make good the loss damaged by its followers, the question of succession would be unfruitful.
Now the Dera Chief is behind the bar, Gurdas Toor, a detractor of Grmeet Ram Rahim Singh and witness in a case against him in an interview to the television channel says that Dera should be closed so that in future no innocent people are exploited.
The imprisonment of Dera Chief in the rape case looks to be the beginning of his bad luck.