SAD Core Committee meets

Reports that Margaret Thatcher's government may have helped Indira Gandhi plan Operation Bluestar in 1984 and alleged step-motherly treatment of Punjab by the Centre dominated the proceedings of SAD's Core Committee meeting here this evening.
The meeting was presided over by SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and attended by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, besides other SAD leaders, a party spokesperson said.
It was decided at the meeting that SAD MPs would raise the issue of Operation Bluestar in Parliament, a party spokesman said here.
The party MPs will demand a direct explanation to the country from the Congress-led UPA government as to why the then Congress government had deemed it necessary to involve "the perpetrators of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in carrying out the brutal Army assault on the highest seat of religious authority of the most patriotic Sikh community," he said.

The party will demand full details on the nature, extent and kind of help sought and received, he said.
In another significant decision, the Core Committee, in consultation with its ally BJP, resolved to organise a protest by SAD-BJP legislators in front of the Punjab Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh on January 24.

The legislators will present a memorandum to Governor Shivraj Patil, highlighting the Centre's "discriminatory and step-motherly treatment" to Punjab and its people by the Congress governments, the spokesman said.
A resolution passed at the meeting said the denial of tax concessions to Punjab, which were offered to neighbouring states, was just "one more chapter in the long tale of step motherly treatment of the people of the state" by the Congress governments at the Centre.

"Now, just when the courageous and visionary policies of the SAD-BJP government have brought Punjab and its economy in a resurgent mode, the Centre has once again delivered this cruel blow, paying no heed to the outcries of the business and industry in the state to provide them an even playing field by extending the same concessions to the state.
"The move is inspired by a deep rooted conspiracy against the people of Punjab which flows from an inexplicable hatred for the state in the minds of the Congress rulers," the SAD resolution said.
Others who attend the meeting were Secretary General Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, General Secretary Balwinder Singh Bhundar, Jathedar Tota Singh.