Former Union Minister P Chidambaram has described Operation Bluestar, the 1984 military assault ordered by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to flush out Khalistani extremists from the Golden Temple, as “the wrong way” to deal with the crisis, saying the Congress leader “paid with her life for that mistake”. The Congress has reacted sharply, saying he appeared to be echoing the BJP’s narrative.Speaking at the Khushwant Singh Literature Festival in Kasauli on Saturday while moderating a discussion on journalist Harinder Baweja’s book ‘They Will Shoot You, Madam’, the senior Congress leader said the operation was a collective failure of the system, not Gandhi’s alone.
“There was a way to retrieve and capture all the militants. Bluestar was the wrong way,” Chidambaram said. “I agree Gandhi p