Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Saturday launched a scathing attack on Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, questioning her great grandfather’s lavish dinner for General Dyer on the day of the barbaric Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
Amarinder's attack on Harsimrat, her husband Sukhbir Singh Badal and father-in-law Prakash Singh Badal came after she slammed the chief minister over his visit to the Akal Takht with Congress president Rahul Gandhi late on Friday night.
“Pb CM @capt_amarinder took @RahulGandhi to Sri Akal Takht Sahib but lacked courage to ask him admit the @INCIndia's sin of demolishing Sikhs' highest religio-temporal seat with tanks & mortars. What a contrast with demand for British apology for #JallianwalaBaghMassacre !”, tweeted Harsimrat in what Amarinder later described as an outrageous statement which showed neither an understanding of the events of 1984 nor his own role in the entire affair.
Amarinder countered Harsimrat’s tweet with: “Did you, your husband @officeofssbadal or his father, Prakash Singh Badal, ever apologise for your great grandfather, Sardar Sunder Singh Majithia’s lavish dinner to Gen Dyer on the day of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre? He was later knighted in 1926 for his loyalty and his deeds.”
Amarinder later went on to lash out at Harsimrat, her brother Bikram Singh Majithia and the Badal clan for playing the charade of nationalism to promote their vested political interests. The Union minister’s remarks, he said, not only smacked of duplicity but total ignorance of the facts of his own role in the events following Operation Blue Star.
“I resigned from both the Parliament and my party in protest against the military action. I was, and still am, fully aware of the implications and consequences of the events of those days,” he said, quipping that Harsimrat would have been in school at that time and totally clueless of what transpired then.
“So don’t try to teach me on Akal Takht. No Badal can ever understand the pain the Sikh community went through. They have always been too busy to self-serve their own interests. Had it been otherwise, they would have apologized for Harsimrat’s great grandfather’s anti-national act long back,” said the chief minister.