CHANDIGARH: No Sikh political party or Member of Parliament responded to an invitation by the Punjab Governor Verma on June 21 to discuss the situation in the state.
An exception was Akali Dal-M dissident MP Rajdev Singh Barnala who defied his party’s decision asking all MPs to stay away. However, BSP member Harbhajan Lakha and JD member joined in. The meeting had no impact as only the Congress I was represented well at the meeting.
The Mann group was the first to boycott the meeting on grounds that the repression of Sikhs was continuing and they could not hold a meaningful dialogue till this stopped.
Other Akali groups followed suit even the Badal group which not long ago described the JD govt as its own stayed away.
Interestingly the governor tried to bring pressure to bear on Mann on the eve of the June 21 meeting against boycott.
The Raj Bhavan so arranged that Justice Ajit Singh Bains, Mrs. Bimal Khalsa and Mrs. Rajinder Kaur presented themselves in the Raj Bhavan.
WSN investigations showed that the initiative to put pressure on Mann did not come either from Mrs. Bimal Khalsa or Mrs. Rajinder Kaur. According to sources close to Bimal Khalsa she was persuaded to meet the governor by Bains on the important issue of fake encounter near Khanna was to be brought to the Governor’s notice, however it was revealed that the sponsors of the meeting had not even mention any encounter killings.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 29, 1990
