A devout Sikh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh began his new year on Sunday by offering pre-dawn prayers at the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple here.
Notwithstanding tight security, a large number of people were present when 79-year-old Dr Singh, accompanied by his wife Gursharan Kaur, came to the 16th-century temple at around 6.30 am to offer prayers and appeared to be undisturbed by some 40 supporters of Anna Hazare who waved black flags and shouted slogans against the government as he left the shrine.
The Prime Minister spent about half-an-hour at the sanctum sanctorum.
They listened to the shabd kirtan (religious hymns) and ardas (prayer) while sitting cross-legged with folded hands in the VIP corridor of the sanctum sanctorum of Harmandar Sahab, known as Golden Temple.
The Prime Minister was attired in a white kurta-pyjama and a dark grey jacket while Gursharan Kaur wore a maroon-coloured shawl and cream-coloured salwar kameez.
The couple, who arrived here Saturday evening, took full round of the marbled periphery around the water pool of the Golden Temple to reach the sanctum sanctorum.
Afterwards they went to Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, to pay obeisance. They heard the ardas for five minutes. The Prime Minister was escorted in the periphery of the Golden Temple in three different human chains created by the NSG from Delhi, troops of Punjab police and then task force of the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee, the apex religious body of the Sikhs.
The Prime Minister and his wife took a sip of amrit (holy nectar) from the water pond at Har Ki Pauri in the periphery of the Golden Temple.
Earlier, the couple were given a siropa (robe of honour) by the Sikh priest Jaswidner Singh in the sanctum sanctorum and later they were again honoured at the information centre of the Golden Temple by Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee general secretary Sukhdev Singh Bahur and SGPC member Kiranjot Kaur.
Information officer of Golden Temple Gurbachan Singh said that couple were also presented a small gold-plated portrait of the Golden Temple, a set of religious books and shawls.