Sonia Gandhi recalls Indira Gandhi breaking down over Op Blue Star, Shiromani Akali Dals sharp rebuttal

PTC News Desk: Sonia Gandhi recently while speaking about her memoir recalled  that former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was distressed by the images emerging from Operation Blue Star, the 1984 military operation inside the Golden Temple complex. 

The Congress leader's remarks have triggered a fresh political slugfest with the Shiromani Akali Dal questioning the party leadership's expression of anguish saying the operation was a direct attack on the Sikh community and Sri Akal Takht Sahib, the supreme temporal seat of the Sikhs. 

SAD spokesperson Arshdeep Singh Kler alleged that the Operation was carried out as part of a larger conspiracy and that the pain of this massacre would remain etched in the hearts of Sikhs for generations. 

Drawing a comparison with the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Kler said the suffering caused by the Congress could not be expressed in words.

“The Congress committed genocide against Sikhs, and innocent Sikhs were killed,” he said. He urged the party leadership to meet families who lost their loved ones and saw their homes burnt down to understand the extent of their pain.

Following Operation Blue Star, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi received threats to her life. “She told us what to do in case she died – so she knew,” Gandhi was quoted as saying by The Guardian. “She was making preparations for her death. She told Rahul he must be brave and not to cry,” she added.

Defending the Congress, party working president Raj Kumar Verka said the party had never justified Operation Blue Star and maintained that it stood with Punjab and its people. He also referred to visits by Rahul Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi to the Golden Temple, saying both leaders had offered prayers at the Sikh shrine.

The exchange has once again brought the sensitive history of Operation Blue Star and the 1984 anti-Sikh violence into Punjab's political debate.

While the Akali Dal has questioned the Congress's moral position on the events of 1984, the Congress has distanced itself from any justification of the military operation. However, the issue continues to evoke strong emotions within the Sikh community.

In an interview with The Guardian ahead of the book's release, Gandhi also recalled that her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, broke down in tears when she was shown photographs of the destruction caused during Operation Blue Star.