JALANDHAR: When the vexed issues of Bhakra Beas Management Board and Chandigarh are back in discourse as the Punjab assembly has passed a resolution for capital’s transfer, many are thinking of 1966 when tempers ran high in the region over the proposal for reorganising the state. There were not just bitter statements and threats of fast-unto-death and self-immolation but also violence — worst of it in Panipat, where a mob burnt alive veteran Congressmen, not sparing even an old companion of revolutionary Bhagat Singh.
BJP is in power at the Centre now, while then its earlier avatar, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, was vocal on the issue. Led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who later became the Prime Minister, it had demanded common governor, high court, and power and irrigation boards after Punjab’s reorganisation.
