Amarinder Singh's biography 'The People's Maharaja' released

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh's biography, 'The People's Maharaja', was released here today.
The authorised biography of the erstwhile scion of Patiala royalty, authored by Chandigarh-based writer Khushwant Singh, sheds a new light on the sequence of events that led to the 1984 army action at Golden temple in Amritsar.
Speaking during a discussion after the launch of the book, Amarinder explained the circumstances under which he had resigned from the Congress over Operation Bluestar in 1984.
He had, however, rejoined the party in 1998.
"I will be torn between my friendship with you and my heritage," he is quoted as telling the then Prime Minister late Indira Gandhi in the book.

About Operation Bluestar, Amarinder said, "I felt there were many times where a solution could have been found, but it was not found. For some reason or other they would drop it, either from the Akali Dal side, (Prakash Singh) Badal would drop it or the Congress would drop it.

"Then in February (1984), I told her (Indira Gandhi) that you will have to find somebody else to carry on from here. Then various people came in the picture.
"And when this actually happened, I told Mrs Gandhi that if you are going to do this, let me also say that I was always told that military action will be the last thing which will be contemplated.

"Four days back when they had sent CRPF and all to surround the Darbar Sahab complex, I had gone to see Mrs Gandhi and even at that stage, I was told this (military action) is the last resort and we will not do this.
"But then it happened... That was the last thing I would have wished. So, time had come for me to call it quits and I submitted my resignation. There were attempts to persuade me to stay on, but I said no."
To a question about the various occasions on which he had used the power of resignations to make his point on some or the other critical issue, Amarinder said that if one does not agree with the decision of a government or institution then one has no business being a part of it.

However, he made a distinction of his resignation from the Army, which he said was necessitated by family reasons and which he later withdrew due to the sudden outbreak of 1965 war.
"I enjoyed every phase of my life, my military career and of course, political career and this is a continuation of military career basically, you fight with the bullets and you fight with the ballots, it is the same thing to me," he said.