1984 attack on Golden Temple was wrong, Congress has apologised for it: Ex-Punjab CM Channi

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Friday said the 1984 "attack" on the Golden Temple was "wrong" and his party has apologised for it, even as he accused the BJP-RSS of exerting pressure on the government for the Army operation at the shrine.

Channi alleged that the BJP-RSS created an environment in the country that the Congress government of that time was not launching an attack on the "Akal Takht" and said while there might have been other reasons for the attack, one of the biggest among those was that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ran a movement and took out processions all over the country demanding action.

"For that, the BJP and the RSS should go to Sikhs and Harmandir Sahib and apologise," Channi said at a press conference at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters here.

Asked why Jagdish Tytler, who faces charges in the anti-Sikh riots case, has not been removed from the Congress, Channi said, "For the riots and the attacks that happened, we have apologised not once but many times that they happened during the Congress rule. The attack on Harmandir Sahib was wrong, the Congress has accepted this and apologised as well." "Whoever needs to be punished, the BJP has been in power for 10 years now, why doesn't it punish them?" he asked.

"We ourselves are saying, I am saying it sitting in the AICC office that the attack on Harmandir Sahib in 1984 was wrong. So why doesn't the BJP accept that there was a huge movement of the saffron party behind the attack that happened in 1984, that it exerted pressure saying the Army should be sent to Harmandir Sahib and its leaders took out a procession demanding that the Army be sent to Harmandir Sahib.... (L K) Advaniji has endorsed this thing in his book, 'My Country, My Life', that they ran a movement," Channi said.

"There was also a movement to send the Army to Harmandir Sahib and arrest the people present there, kill them. This is on record. The Congress has apologised (for it).... I want to ask, when will you (BJP) apologise for your role?" he asked.

The Indian Army carried out Operation Blue Star in June 1984 to flush out militants hiding in the Golden Temple complex in Punjab's Amritsar.