Punjab govt keeping Home Ministry in dark about Bluestar memorial: Congress

 by Punjabnewswire4u (Balbir)

CHANDIGARH, JULY 25

Punjab Congress today reiterated its demand to the Akali-BJP government in the state to clarify its stand on the Operation Bluestar memorial within the Golden Temple complex. The party said, while on the one hand the Punjab government was trying to fool the people in the state, on the other hand it was trying to keep the government of India and the Union Home Ministry in the dark about the real facts by saying it was not a memorial but a Gurdwara.

Asking the government to come clean and come clear about the status of the memorial and its stand about it, Punjab Congress general secretary Arvind Khanna pointed out, now the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhik Committee (SGPC) has candidly been claiming that the first phase of “the memorial” is completed while to the home ministry it has been claiming it is a Gurdwara.

Maintaining that the issue was too serious and sensitive to be brushed aside, he remarked, the government in this case was trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, which is not acceptable. He said, this does not portend well for the state as it has led to a fear psychosis and sense of insecurity among the people particularly the minorities.

“If the government thinks that by biding time it can run away from its responsibility it is simply mistaken”, he remarked, while asserting, Congress will  call its bluff on sectarian politics as it is against the interests of Punjab.

Khanna revealed, when Punjab Congress leaders took up the matter with the Union Home Minister Mr P Chidambaram they were surprised to learn that the Chief Minister Mr Parkash Singh Badal had told him that there was no memorial to anybody being built up inside the Golden Temple complex, but only a Gurdwara which will not have anybody’s pictures.

The Congress general secretary asked the SGPC president Avatar Singh Makkar to explain the displaying of the pictures and portraits of militants in the langar hall of the Durbar Sahib.

Questioning the very logic of building a Gurdwara within a Gurdwara and that too within the Holiest of the Holy places like the Harmandir Sahib, he said, even if the Punjab government is to be believed, it defies logic and common sense that there should be another Gurdwara within the holy precincts of the Golden Temple, the Mecca of all the Sikhs.