Rajiv forgotten, Punjab Cong discovers Longowal

With slogans of amar shaheed and promises to hold the function every year, it seemed Rajiv Gandhi had receded from the limelight.

The saving grace for the Congress was Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, the Number Two in the Punjab cabinet, who opted to participate in the blood donation camp organised not by the Punjab but the Chandigarh Territorial Congress Committee.

Asked about her absence from the Longowal show, which falls in her home district, Bhattal cited ‘‘backache’’ as the reason for not being able to travel.

Rajiv Gandhi is a bigger martyr and the Gandhi family has three generations of sacrifice, she did not forget to add. The youth draw inspiration from Rajiv Gandhi the same way as they do from Bhagat Singh, Bhattal said.

At Longowal village in Sangrur, Amarinder declared the late Sant a national martyr, saying that martyrs do not belong to one party but to the entire nation. He regretted that the Akali government had never observed the martyrdom of former chief minister Beant Singh. Amarinder said it was a ‘‘mere coincidence that the birth anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi and the death anniversary of Longowal, both dynamic leaders who made sacrifices for the nation, fall on the same day’’.

Punjab Congress president H.S. Hanspal too was at Longowal as were a host of ministers. In Chandigarh, headquarters of the state Congress, the Congress function was remarkably low key with daughter of Beant Singh Gurkanwal Kaur holding the fort.

Akali leader Parkash Singh Badal did not fail to take another snipe at the Congress yesterday. Strange irony, he said, as he termed Rajiv Gandhi as the ‘‘betrayer and Longowal as the betrayed’’. Wonder, what the Congress shall commemorate, he asked. He was not wrong.