Why does Rahul Gandhi reward killers of Sikhs with plum posts in Congress: SAD chief Sukhbir Badal

Rahul had held a question-and-answer session at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs of Bro Affairs of Brown University, US, on April 21.

Replying to the question of a Sikh participant about treatment of Sikhs at the hands of Congress in the past, Rahul said, “As far as mistakes of the Congress are concerned, a lot of those mistakes happened when I was not there. But I am more than happy to take responsibility for everything that the Congress party has ever done wrong in its history.”

When the Sikh student again asked what he had done to reconcile with the Sikhs, the Congress leader said: “I have publicly stated that what happened in the ’80s was wrong. I have been to the Golden Temple multiple times, I have an extremely good relationship with the Sikh community in India and a loving relationship with them.”

Badal said Rahul had described himself as a minor at the time of the 1984 events but noted that he is now 55 years old. “He has been an adult for the past 37 years or more and all these years, he has remained mum. Why has it taken him all these 35 years just to start talking about his predecessors’ and his colleagues’ sins against Sikhs?” he said.

The SAD chief asked whether Rahul would acknowledge what he described as the roles of former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi in the events of 1984. “Does Rahul not know that it was his grandmother Indira Gandhi who ordered troops, rolled tanks and mortars into Harmandar Sahib?” he said.

Badal also referred to comments attributed to Rajiv Gandhi in the aftermath of the 1984 violence. “Would he confess his father’s role in the massacre and its justification by comparing it to the earth shaking when a big tree falls?”

The SAD president questioned Rahul’s visits to religious sites, saying, “Why must you talk as if you did us or our holy shrine a favour by paying obeisance there?”

He stated, “Let Rahul first expel men like Sajjan Kumar, Kamal Nath and Jagdish Tytler from his party.” Referring to them as “guilty men of 1984,” Badal said their continued presence in the party undermines Gandhi’s statements.

Badal alleged that Rahul’s remarks were insincere and politically motivated. “Rahul cannot befool the Sikhs with crocodile tears or with his hollow words, political gimmicks and empty cosmetics,” he said.