Even as Akal Takht has ordered all Sikhs not to interact with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Amritsar BJP leader Jagmohan Raju has sought an appointment from the CM.In a letter to the CM, Raju justified his action saying he requested for an urgent appointment regarding the admission of nearly 1,00,000 poor and Scheduled Caste children under the Right to Education Act.A former bureaucrat-turned-BJP leader, Jagmohan Raju recently resigned from the post of vice-president of the Punjab BJP, days after the party appointed a former Congress leader as the Punjab BJP chief.”I am fully aware that Sri Akal Takht Sahib has declared the Chief Minister ‘Guru Dokhi’ and ‘Panth Virodhi’ and has directed Sikhs not to have any association with him. As a Sikh, I hold Sri Akal Takht Sahib in the highest reverence. Yet, when the educational future of nearly one lakh poor Dalit children is at stake, my conscience does not permit me to remain passive,” Raju wrote to the CM.”I am fully conscious that meeting the Chief Minister may invite the displeasure and censure of Sri Akal Takht Sahib. Nevertheless, for the sake of Punjab’s poor children and their constitutional right to education, I am prepared to bear that consequence,” he added.The Akal Takht on June 15 had declared Mann a Guru Dokhi and Khalsa Panth Virodhi after officiating Jathedar Giani Kuldeep Singh Gargaj presided over a meeting of the five Singh Sahiban in Amritsar. The clergy’s order cited a controversial video that allegedly showed Mann sprinkling alcohol on a portrait of the 10 Gurus and an image of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. Mann had told the Singh Sahiban in January that the video was AI-generated, but the Akal Takht said it got the footage examined by two government authorised labs after he failed to produce his own forensic report.Mann has rejected the edict and denied that he was the man in the video. In a video message, he said people occupying the highest positions of religious bodies were indulging in false propaganda at the behest of their political bosses to defame him.The opposition has seized on the order. Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon said the party’s Sikh Union ministers would also not hold meetings with Mann until he accepted the Akal Takht’s directives and apologised.Raju, a retired IAS officer and former general secretary of Punjab BJP, had quit his organisational post earlier this month, citing his wish to devote more time to public causes including education rights of poor children and protection of the constitutional rights of Scheduled Castes and Sikhs.The BJP or the CM Mann office has not responded to Raju’s action.