Veteran Congress leader and former Union minister P. Chidambaram remarked on Sunday that the 'Operation Blue Star' carried out under the instruction of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was a “wrong way” to secure the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
He said Gandhi had to pay the price for this mistake with her life.
The operation was launched by the Indian military in 1984 to flush out the armed Sikh separatists led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from inside the holy shrine.
"No disrespect to any service officers present here, but that was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple. Three to four years later, we showed the right way to retrieve the Golden Temple, by keeping out the army," Chidambaram said while attending an event in Delhi.
#WATCH | Kasauli, Solan, HP: Former Home Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram says, "... No disrespect to any military officers here, but that (Blue Star) was the wrong way to retrieve the Golden Temple. A few years later, we showed the right way to retrieve the Golden… pic.twitter.com/QpFJEGYNQQ
— ANI (@ANI) October 12, 2025
The Congress leader, however, claimed that the whole blame cannot be put on Gandhi for the incident.
“I agreed that Ms Gandhi paid with her life for that mistake but that mistake was a cumulative decision of the army, the police, the intelligence and the civil service. We can't blame it on only Ms Gandhi," he said.
When a senior Congress leader like P. Chidambaram admits that Operation Blue Star was a “wrong way” to enter Sri Harmandir Sahib, it exposes the Congress’s historic blunder that deeply wounded the Sikh community.
But his attempt to shift the blame away from Indira Gandhi is… pic.twitter.com/xSgfsO7Z4m
— Manjinder Singh Sirsa (@mssirsa) October 12, 2025
“A more strategic approach like Operation Black Thunder, where electricity and water supply to the Golden Temple were cut off and militants were compelled to surrender could have achieved the objective without desecrating the sanctity of Sri Harmandir Sahib and the Akal Takhat, and without the tragic loss of innocent devotees’ lives,” BJP national spokesperson R.P. Singh said.
He said Indira Gandhi chose the path of confrontation for electoral gain, seeking to ignite nationalist fervour before the 1984 parliamentary elections by portraying the most patriotic community of India, the Sikhs, as anti-national, he said.
“In doing so, she got trapped in her own political web and ultimately paid for it with her life.”
As a Nationalist, I strongly believe that Operation Blue Star was completely avoidable, as rightly mentioned by former Home Minister P. Chidambaram.
A more strategic approach like Operation Black Thunder, where electricity and water supply to the Golden Temple were cut off and…
— RP Singh National Spokesperson BJP (@rpsinghkhalsa) October 12, 2025
The Operation Blue Star, carried out from June 1 to June 8 in 1984, sparked massive resentment among the Sikh community, which interpreted it as an “assault” on their religion. The military move also marked the beginning of the insurgency in Punjab.
Five months after the operation, on October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in an act of revenge by two of her Sikh bodyguards. |
