P Chidambaram calls Operation Blue Star a ‘mistake’, Congress reacts
Congress veteran and former Union home minister P. Chidambaram has said that Operation Bluestar was a “mistake” and “the wrong way” to handle Sikh militancy, annoying some in his party and leaving the BJP gloating.
Chidambaram’s comments come just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi interpreted some of his remarks at an interview as an admission that foreign pressure had muted India’s response to the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Operation Bluestar, during which the army stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out insurgents, was conducted in June 1984 when Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister. The move alienated large sections of Sikhs, and she was assassinated by two of her Sikh bodyguards four months later.
“Blue Star was the wrong way and I agree that Mrs Gandhi paid with her life for that mistake,” Chidambaram said in reply to a question at the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, on Saturday.
He added, though, that the operation was a joint decision taken by the army, police, intelligence agencies and the civil service. “You cannot blame it only on Mrs Gandhi.”
Union minister Kiren Rijiju posted on X: “Chidambaram Ji admits the Congress blunders too late! After revealing that India could not respond to Pakistan terror attacks in Mumbai, due to high pressure from USA & foreign powers, now he admits operation blue star in Golden Temple was also a mistake.”
Chidambaram, who became home minister shortly after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, had in an interview with a news channel last month said: “Condoleezza Rice, who was then US secretary of state, flew in two or three days after I took over to meet me and the Prime Minister. And to say, ‘Please don’t react’.