punjab

Updated: Apr 26, 2016 00:06 IST

Terming the 1984 Operation Bluestar “foolishness on the part of then prime minister Indira Gandhi”, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and newly nominated Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy on Saturday demanded declassification of its files to bring out the truth behind allowing army into the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Addressing the students of Lovely Professional University (LPU) here, Swamy said in reply to a question from one that he believed slain militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale to be a preacher who promoted Sikhism and motivated youth to stay away from drugs. “Since Bhindranwale at that time was only 35, his style of preaching was a bit aggressive, and that’s what prompted many to think that he was a hardliner, even a terrorist. I met him many times before this operation. He would call media to the Akal Takht in routine. Why would any terrorist hold press conferences?” said Swamy.

Starting the controversial topic in his speech, the MP said it was communist leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet who had conveyed it to communist-ruled former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) that if Sikhism returned to Punjab, it would wipe out communism from the state. “Once a Soviet ambassador to India also accepted that because of pressure from Surjeet, USSR had asked prime minister Indira for the operation. Then president Giani Zail Singh had asked me to advise Indira not to take this step under the Soviet pressure. I talked to her but she was so obsessed with the USSR that she could not say no,” said the five-time MP.

Swamy said when he had raised question in 1984 over calling Bhindranwale a terrorist; many political parties had opposed him. “I lost an election because of this stand. But my opinion will remain the same. Only the declassification of files and few sentences in the post-Bluestar carnage against Sikhs in Delhi would provide relief to the community and bury the issue forever,” said the BJP leader.

‘India to divide Pak if it doesn’t mend its ways’

Newly nominated BJP Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy claims that “India is making a strategy to divide Pakistan into four, if the neighbour didn’t mend its ways”.

The leader known for his straight and controversial remarks said the groundwork had begun, though no one at the government level would admit to it. “Tomorrow, my party may call it my personal opinion but we all working on it,” he told students.

He further accused Muslims of hindering Uniform Civil Code in India alone, while in Australia and the US, they had adopted and accepted it. “Here the Hindu majority is soft. Abroad, the majority is very strict,” he said.