M A I N   N E W S

Bhattal leaves without CM’s nod
Prabhjot Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 5
Did Punjab Agriculture Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal target senior Congressmen, including Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, during her meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, before leaving for Canada yesterday?

Her suggestion to Mrs Gandhi that the party should take a serious view of the foreign jaunts of all such Congressmen who go there and hold only indoor meetings with the rich and influential than interact with NRIs at large is being politically viewed as a direct dig at the Chief Minister and his colleague, Finance Minister, Lal Singh, in reference to their recent “controversial trip to the UK and the USA.”

Not only that Mrs Bhattal reportedly did not seek, even for courtesy sake, permission of the Chief Minister to go abroad on an invitation from Vancouver-based Shaheed Bhagat Singh Memorial Foundation. Instead, she met the party chief and sought her blessings for the success of her tour in which she promised to bring back into the party fold those who had alienated themselves from the Congress in the aftermath of “Operation Bluestar.”

The purpose of visits abroad of every Congressman, she told Mrs Gandhi, should be to propagate and highlight secularism and party policies rather than “pamper rich and affluent NRIs by holding exclusive meetings with them in hotels. Such pampered NRIs always side with the people in power, irrespective of the political party they belong to, as they have their own vested interests,” she reportedly told Mrs Gandhi.

A vast majority of the Punjabi immigrants settled in Canada and the USA work either as labourers in factories and farm houses or are taxi drivers. “Unfortunately, many of our Congress leaders have no time for such people during their visits abroad,” she said, probably referring to a few meetings the Chief Minister’s entourage had with some influential NRIs, both in the UK and the USA.

Mrs Bhattal also reportedly made sure that her meeting with Mrs Sonia Gandhi before her departure for Canada was publicised in the media. She handed over a letter listing her achievements to propagate INC ideology during her two earlier visits to Canada. Mrs Bhattal visited Canada for the first time in 1998 at the invitation of Mr Davinder Singh, the then President of the Overseas Congress, which was most troubled period in the history of Sikhs in Canada. The most troublesome and problematic issue at that time was the directive from Akal Takht to the Sikh community not to dine on tables.

She addressed a meeting in the open to mark India’s Independence Day on August 15, 1998, at Toronto. She was able to counter and stem the dictate to the Sikhs not to eat on tables with her persuasive and solid arguments to the great relief of Canadian Sikhs who were in a dilemma, said Mrs Bhattal in her letter, claiming that she was invited to another function to celebrate the birthday of Mr Rajiv Gandhi on August 20, 1998, at Vancouver.

The then Federal Minister, Mr Herb Dhaliwal, and the Premier of British Columbia, Mr Ujjal Dosanjh, also attended the function. Thousands of people of Indian origin gathered at the function despite threats from terrorists. Mrs Bhattal says in her letter that this resulted in a marvellous success and “we gained control of 70 of the 84 gurdwaras from the Akalis and hardliners.”

Again she visited Canada to participate in the celebrations to mark the movement launched by Gadri Babas from Canada for the freedom of India. Her father, Baba Hira Singh Bhattal, was an executive member of Gadri Babas’ organisation. Members of Canadian Parliament, besides government officials, participated in the function which was attended by thousands of people, claimed Mrs Bhattal in her letter.