Chidambaram shouldn’t have raked up Bluestar issue: Punjab Cong leaders

Punjab Congress leaders on Sunday said it was unnecessary on part of former Home Minister P Chidambaram to rake up the issue of the Operation Bluestar as the party leadership, including Rahul Gandhi, had apologised for “past mistakes”.

Chidambaram, while speaking at a literary event in Kasauli on Saturday, said the Operation Bluestar was “wrong” and then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi “paid the price with her life for the mistake”. Former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Channi said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had publicly acknowledged and accepted responsibility for the Congress party’s “past mistakes” regarding the Operation Bluestar and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

“It is now BJP’s turn to apologise as its patriarch LK Advani in his book My Country, My Life has said that he had announced support to Indira Gandhi on the Operation Bluestar,” Channi said.

He said since the Operation Bluestar was a government action, the current government must apologise for it.

Former Speaker of Punjab Vidhan Sabha Rana KP Singh, without naming Chidambaram, said people who were not dealing with Punjab should stay away from issuing such statements.

Indira to blame: AAP MLA

Meanwhile, APP legislator Indrabir Singh Nijjar said Indira Gandhi was fully responsible for the military operation. “What was the intention of the Congress behind saving Sajjan Kumar, Jagdish Tytler and Kamal Nath, who killed the Sikhs,” he asked.

‘Could have been avoided’

BJP’s national spokesperson RP Singh said the operation was completely avoidable as rightly mentioned by Chidambaram.

“A more strategic approach like the Operation Black Thunder, where electricity and water supply to the Golden Temple were cut off and militants compelled to surrender could have achieved the objective without desecrating the sanctity of Harmandir Sahib and the Akal Takht, and without the tragic loss of innocent devotees’ lives,” he said in a statement.

“Indira Gandhi, for political reasons, chose the path of confrontation for electoral gain, seeking to ignite nationalist fervour before the 1984 parliamentary elections by portraying the most patriotic community of India — the Sikhs — as anti-national. In doing so, she got trapped in her own political web and ultimately paid for it with her life,” he added.