As Rahul Gandhi visits Golden Temple, Oppn parties invoke history to attack Bharat Jodo Yatra

Sporting an orange turban, the former Congress chief paid obeisance at the sanctum sanctorum of the Golden Temple.

“By reaching Sri Harmandir Sahib, the faith in human values becomes even deeper. Sat Shri Akal!” he said in a tweet in Hindi.

Gandhi also posted a few pictures on Twitter, where he is seen taking “parshad” and listening to “gurbani” during his Golden Temple visit.

He was accompanied by Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly Partap Singh Bajwa, local MP Gurjit Singh Aujla and other party leaders.

Till Tuesday morning, several Punjab Congress leaders were not aware of Gandhi’s plan to visit Amritsar.

Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal dubbed Gandhi’s yatra as a “drama”. He said it was condemnable that Gandhi, whose family had a history of breaking Punjab and discriminating against it, was leading the Bharat Jodo Yatra in the state. “No one has damaged Punjab as much as the Gandhi family,” he said.

Talking to the media in Muktsar, the SAD president said the Gandhi family has a history of ‘Bharat Todo’. “Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the attack on Darbar Sahib using tanks and mortars which led to destruction of Akal Takht”. He said Gandhi’s father Rajiv Gandhi engineered the “1984 genocide of Sikhs” and even justified it by saying “when a big tree falls the earth shakes”.

Asking Gandhi to search his conscience, Badal said, “The Gandhi family is also responsible for robbing Punjab of its river waters and handing them over forcibly to Rajasthan.” He said Indira Gandhi also prevailed upon then chief minister Darbara Singh to approve the construction of the SYL canal. “All this was done despite the fact that Punjab has an inalienable right over its river waters as per the riparian principle,” Badal added.

Punjab BJP chief Ashwani Sharma said, “The way Sikhs were killed in 1984, the Congress never felt ashamed of it. I hope that during his yatra, he (Gandhi) will seek an apology from Punjabis for that heinous act”.

Meanwhile, SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami said, “Everybody hoped that to prove his drama about Bharat Jodo Yatra, Gandhi would apologise for attack on Akal Takht. But he once again proved that his party has no regret for anything by issuing no apology”.

He said, “Gandhi and Congress has no right to speak on communal forces and giving call of communal harmony. His silence during visit to Harmandir Sahib has proved that he and his party is not serious when it comes to justice to minorities.”

“Sikhs faced genocide due to Congress and wrongs done to community are not corrected yet. On other hand, Congress still has people like Kamal Nath and Jagdish Tytler, who are in fact making strategies for this Yatra. What can be bigger joke than this,” said Dhami.

Radical outfit Dal Khalsa said it was “ironic that the nomenclature of the Yatra is in sharp contrast to Congress’s divisive and destructive agenda”.