‘Indira Gandhi paid the price with her life for this mistake’: What Chidambaram said about Operation Blue Star
The military operation was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple, says the former Union minister
The military operation was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple, says the former Union minister
The military operation was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple, says the former Union minister
The military operation was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple, says the former Union minister
Veteran Congress leader and former Union minister P. Chidambaram remarked on Sunday that the Operation Blue Star launched by then prime minister Indira Gandhi was a “wrong way” to secure the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
He said Gandhi had to pay the price for this mistake with her life.
The operation was launched by the Indian military in 1984 to flush out the armd Sikh separatists led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from inside the temple.
"No disrespect to any service officers present here but that was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple. Three to four years later, we showed the right way to retrieve the Golden Temple, by keeping out the army," he said while attending an event in Delhi.
The Congress leader, however, claimed that the whole blame cannot be put on Gandhi for the incident.
“I agreed that Ms Gandhi paid with her life for that mistake but that mistake was a cumulative decision of the army, the police, the intelligence and the civil service. We can't blame it on only Ms Gandhi," he said.
The Operation Blue Star, carried out from June 1 to June 8 in 1984, sparked massive resentment among Sikh community which interpreted it as an “assault” on their religion. The military move also marked the beginning of insurgency in Punjab.
Five months after the operation, on October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in an act of revenge by two of her Sikh bodyguards.