Chidambaram calling Blue Star ‘wrong way’ exposes Congress’s blunder: Sirsa

Delhi Minister and senior Sikh leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party Manjinder Singh Sirsa on Sunday said that when a senior Congress leader like P Chidambaram admits that Operation Blue Star was not the right approach, it is something that ”throws light on the historic blunder of the grand old party”.

Sirsa claimed that the Congress leader’s remarks make it clear as to how the Sikhs were treated in an unjust manner by attacking the sacred place using weapons.

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“However, saying that former PM Indira Gandhi was not alone responsible for this is not accepted in any way, as she was responsible for the step, being the PM and holding such an important responsibility,” Sirsa said in a video that he shared on the social media platform X.

He said this attempt to shift the blame away from Ms Gandhi is unacceptable, as no one else, but the political leadership during that time, bears moral and constitutional responsibility for ordering for an action that was highly disrespectful to the holy place for the Sikhs.

Sirsa said that history cannot be rewritten to absolve those who gave the orders.

The BJP leader also said that the operation was Congress’s historic blunder that deeply wounded the Sikh community.

Sirsa’s reaction comes after the senior Congress leader Chidambaram reportedly called Operation Blue Star ” the wrong way” to secure the Sikh shrine.

Speaking at a literature festival in Kasauli, he had said the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi “paid with her life” for the decision, and he stressed that it was a cumulative mistake involving the Army, police, intelligence agencies, and civil service, and that she alone should not be blamed.

Reacting sharply to what he had said, the BJP said that the Sikh community will “never forgive” the Congress for Operation Blue Star.

BJP national spokesperson R P Singh also expressed that as a nationalist, he strongly believes that Operation Blue Star was completely avoidable.

BJP’s national spokesperson R P Singh has also criticised the grand old party, and said that the Blue Star operation was “completely avoidable”, and a similar strategy like Operation Black Thunder could have achieved the same objective of driving out separatists without disrespecting the holy shrine, and loss of lives.

Operation Black Thunder is the name given to two operations that took place in India in the late 1980s to remove Sikh militants from the Golden Temple using ‘Black Cat’ commandos and commandos from the Border Security Force.