Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) will hold a State-level National Integration Rally to pay tributes to former Chief Minister and the “national martyr” Beant Singh at his memorial in Sector 42, Chandigarh on Saturday, August 31 - the day he was assassinated in a bomb blast.
The State-level Rashtriya Ekta Rally has now been organized on Beant Singh’s nineteenth death anniversary by the State Congress leadership after 16-year-long gap. Earlier, the state-level rally was organized only once at Beant Singh’s samadhi during the tenure of the then Chief Minister Harcharan Singh Brar in 1996. At that time, rallies were also held at Beant Singh’s native place in Payal (ludhiana). Since then, only a small-scale ceremony is organized every year where only Congress leaders and Beant Singh family members pay floral tributes at his samadhi with no formal function at the site.
This time, the State Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa has decided to organise a huge rally, and issued directions to the Congress cadres to gear up for its preparations well-in-advance. Beant Singh’s grandson, and Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib Ravneet Singh Bittu has maintained that the rally is going to be “historic” with the participation of Congress workers of all ranks to pay tributes to the departed leader who sacrificed his life for unity and integrity of the country.
Besides Bajwa, the national leaders of Congress party including Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, AICC general secretary and in-charge of Punjab party affairs Shakeel Ahmed, and AICC secretary Harish Chaudhary will address the meeting. As per party sources, all the party MlAs, MPs and senior leaders have been asked to remain present in the rally.