NEW DELHI: Indian Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has expressed interest in attending the World Punjabi Conference in Lahore, using the opportunity to take a swipe at the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over whether it would allow his visit to Pakistan.
The chief minister expressed his wish while speaking during an Indian Punjab assembly session, saying he had received an invitation from Pakistani Punjabi poet, Baba Najmi, to attend the 4th International Punjabi Conference, scheduled for November 27-29 in Lahore.
“They do not even let me go to France or Japan. How will they let me go to Pakistan?” he said. “I also want to go, because our roots are one, our problems are also similar.”
CM Mann maintained that people on both sides of the border should interact given their shared culture.
Echoing Mann’s wish, Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan urged him to take fellow assembly members to Pakistan if his visit for the conference is approved.
The Indian Punjab chief minister also called for the reopening of the Kartarpur corridor.
The corridor, which connects Dera Baba Nanak in Indian Punjab’s Gurdaspur district to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur, Pakistan, was indefinitely suspended by Indian authorities on May 7, 2025, following the Pahalgam attack and subsequent hostilities between the two neighbouring countries.
Pakistan and India went to war in May last year after India launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistan following the attack on tourists in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).
New Delhi claimed that the terrorists who killed 26 tourists in IIOJK’s Pahalgam were Pakistanis — a charge that Islamabad has denied and has also asked India to partake in a neutral investigation.
India followed the baseless accusations with unlawful missile strikes inside Pakistan, which resulted in the martyrdom of several civilians and security personnel. Pakistan responded by downing eight Indian fighter jets, including three Rafales.
The war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States.
