CHANDIGARH: Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda was reported to have received a cold welcome on a visit to the Golden Temple. Gowda was accompanied by members of his Cabinet Social Welfare Minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia, External Affairs Minister Inder Kumar Gujral and Railways Minister Ram Vilas Paswan.
Ramoowalia had some embarrassment when Bhai Mohan Singh, a priest, refused to give him the traditional saropa, a ceremonial cloth to go round the neck. The other Cabinet members and Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Brar of the state’s ruling Congress Party were given saropas, The priest said the reason was that Ramoowalia had dyed his beard, which is prohibited in the Sikh faith. Gowda was spared similar embarrassment when Gurcharan Singh Tohra, president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, nearly refused to welcome him. He changed his mind a few minutes before the Prime Minister’s arrival, after persuasion from senior police officials. Tohra said he was also upset that Prakash Singh Badal, leader of the Akali Dal
(Badal faction), was not invited to welcome Gowda.
The party, which won eight of the 13 federal legislature seats in Punjab in the recent elections, boycotted the event. It supported the previous BJP government of Atal Behari Vajpayee. Sikh groups have been demanding an apology from the government for the “Operation Blue Star,” the 1984 military operation to flush out militants from the Golden Temple. Gowda was reported to have said that the operation “was a most unfortunate incident,” and that he had nothing more to say. Gowda also visited the historic Jalianwala Bagh, where hundreds of peacefully assembled Indians were surrounded and massacred in 1919 by British troops.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 3, 1996
