Canadian PM ruffles feathers at Golden Temple

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper visited the Golden Temple to appease a large Sikh audience in  his home country, but he ended up leaving the community in Chandigarh displeased.

Harper invited anger when he declined to partake of prasad after paying obeisance at the Golden Temple. The prime minister’s aide, Alisa Mohammed, turned down the prasad when it was given to her. The prime minister followed suit, thus leaving the granthi fuming. At the Golden Temple, refusal of prasad is considered a sacrilege.

The prime minister ruffled some more feathers when he declined to partake of langar at the community kitchen of the temple. The SGPC officials, escorting the prime minister, were rather upset at the way Harper and his staff conducted themselves at the Golden Temple. “It is for the first time that we have suffered such humiliation at the hands of a foreigner in our own office,” said a senior SGPC official

As soon as Harper left the holy city, Amritsar MP Navjot Singh Sidhu made noise for being ignored. Sidhu complained that the district administration did not invite him to join the Canadian PM and that he would move a privilege motion against the district administration in Parliament. “Despite several reminders, I was not sent an invite. I even spoke to Amritsar deputy commissioner KS Pannu, but he said I could not be allowed inside the airport,” he said.

The Punjab government also invited the wrath of the leader of the opposition in the assembly Rajinder Kaur Bhattal for not inviting her to join the reception in honour of the Canadian prime minister.

Qila Raipur MLA Jassi Khangura, in a strongly worded letter to chief secretary SC Agarwal, said not inviting Bhattal was a breach of protocol. “It reflects the partisan mindset of the state government.”