The honour has gone to a veteran soldier in the flight of freedom, and a man of the people. He is a man of humble origin but his achievements are imp… - Zail Singh

In anguish, I asked the prime minister what our intelligence agencies were doing all these months when the arms build-up was going on. And why action had not been taken to apprehend Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the extremist leader. I asked her if any police officer had been taken to task for negligence of duty in allowing terrorists to smuggle arms into the temple [Golden temple, Amritsar] for almost two years. She had obviously no plausible answer. With a distant look in her eyes, she replied feebly that it was the duty of the Punjab government to take care of these aspects.

He refutes as a canard, the allegation made by two BBC men in their book that it was he who had brought Bhindranwale to the political centre stage. Another "fantastic lie", spread by his detractors was that he had touched Bhindranwale's feet. He attributes all this calumny to Darbara Singh.

In a dramatic move, he withheld his consent to a Bill to amend the Indian Postal Act of 1898, saying that it was too sweeping in its scope. He felt that the Government wanted arbitrary powers to intercept postal communications indiscriminately. This created a big sensation and memories of Indira Gandhi's infamous Emergency were revived. Obviously, the President was hitting Rajiv Gandhi where it would hurt most.