The AIKS Punjab state council meeting was held at Jalandhar on May 3, 2022. It was presided over by state vice president Darshan Singh Mattoo and state general secretary Major Singh Punnawal conducted the meeting.
AIKS President Dr Ashok Dhawale placed the immediate agrarian issues, the developments in the SKM, and the organisational decisions of the AIKS. After a discussion on the agenda items, the meeting was concluded by state vice president Sukhwinder Singh Sekhon.
The main decisions of the meeting were: 1. Hold protest demonstrations in the state against the rise in fertiliser prices and the power shortages. 2. Complete the collection of all membership and finalise it in the state office bearers meeting at Chandigarh on May 25. 3. Send two delegates to the All India Dairy Farmers Workshop at Kozhikode. 4. Hold 600 village unit conferences before May 31, with district targets set for the same. Hold tehsil conferences from June 1 to July 10, district conferences from July 11 to August 10, and the state conference on August 27-28.
The 16th Punjab state conference of the DYFI began at the Bhag Singh Canadian Bhawan (Ghadar Party veteran who lived to the age of 100 years) at Nurmahal in Jalandhar district on May 4. The welcome address was delivered by Sukhpreet Johal and it was inaugurated by Dr Ashok Dhawale. The inaugural session was attended by Sukhwinder Singh Sekhon and other leaders of various mass fronts. The venue was named after Punjab AIKS general secretary Sarwan Singh Cheema and the hall after Punjab DYFI general secretary Sohan Singh Dhesi, both from Jalandhar district, both of whom were martyred in the 1990s in the valiant fight to defend national unity against the Khalistani terrorists.
On May 3 evening, a meeting of AIKS members was addressed by Dr Ashok Dhawale at the office in Jandiala village, which has a record of 75 freedom fighters, most of them from the Left. This village is close to Bundala, which is the village of the legendary Party and AIKS leader Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet.
On the morning of May 4, we visited the Jhandyawala Chowk in Jandiala, where the red flag was hoisted much before independence, and where the tiranga national flag and the red flag have flown side by side ever since independence. There is a memorial and a library to commemorate the 75 freedom fighters. Jandiala is the village where the DYFI state conference was held in the 1990s with a huge youth rally, and on the very next day, Khalistani terrorists gunned down Sohan Singh Dhesi in his village a few kilometres away.
At Cheema Kalan village, we paid respects to the memorial to former Punjab AIKS general secretary and martyr Sarwan Singh Cheema, and to the memorial to another Ghadar Party veteran Baba Karam Singh Cheema. He lived to the age of 103 years and the Party’s Punjab state committee office in Chandigarh is named after him.