40 years ago May 28, 1986: Punjab Speaker resigns

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on May 28, 1986. 2 min readMay 28, 2026 06:55 AM IST First published on: May 28, 2026 at 06:55 AM IST Ravi Inder Singh resigned as Speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, saying he did not desire the office to be “undermined unnecessarily” and would not like “to leave behind a legacy of controversy”. Elected Speaker twice in the past decade, Singh was to face a no-confidence motion on June 2. He flew to Kulu after forwarding his resignation to Governor Siddhartha Shankar Ray. Homage paid to NehruThe nation paid homage to the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, on his 22nd death anniversary. In the capital, President Zail Singh, Vice President R Venkataraman and PM Rajiv Gandhi were among a large number of people who offered floral tributes at Nehru’s Samadhi in Shantivana. Later, speaking at a photographic exhibition, Venkataraman called on the people to rededicate themselves to Nehru’s path of democratic socialism. Recalling Nehru’s contribution to the building of modern India, Venkataraman said he was the architect who transformed a medieval India into a modern state. Dissidents ask priests to quit The dissident Akali Dal leaders demanded the resignation of the five Sikh high priests from their posts for having pardoned the Punjab Chief Minister, Surjit Singh Barnala, for the police action in the Golden Temple complex on April 30. The demand was contained in a resolution passed with a show of hands at a district conference of the group at Sangrur, the home district of Barnala. The conference was attended by about 10,000 people. Arun Nehru stable Arun Nehru, Union Minister of State for Internal Security, suffered a mild heart attack. He was admitted to Sher-E-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences. A team of doctors headed by Dr Jalal-Ud-Din, head of the cardiology department, is attending him. According to the dean of the hospital, Nehru’s condition was “stable”.