Last year, Dera chief got over 4,000 Padma recommendations

NEW DELHI: Over 4,200 recommendations were received by the home ministry last year for conferring

Padma Award to Dera Sacha Sauda chief

Gurmeet

Ram Rahim

Singh, who was convicted of rape and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In fact, five of these were self-recommendations made by the Dera chief himself.

Of the 18,768 nominations for Padma Awards 2017, Gurmeet Ram Rahim was the most recommended name. Among the 4,208 applications recommending the honour in the name of ‘Saint Dr Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh ji Insan’, his name, were multiple ones submitted by the same person.

A majority of these applications were filed from people based in Sirsa, where the Dera headquarters are located. Of the five recommendations received from the Dera chief himself, three mentioned his address as Sirsa, one as Hisar in Haryana and another as Ganganagar in Rajasthan. The overwhelming majority of those who recommended Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s name for the civilian honour used single names like Abha, Aditya, Akbar, Alfez, Baljinder, Milky, Gajal, Komal, Jony, Jesse and Ishwar. One Amit, based in Sirsa, recommended Gurmeet’s name 31 times, and a Sunil nominated him 27 times.