New Delhi: The ruling Congress party vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s comments on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, which claimed about 8,000 lives, has opened a Pandora’s box and pushed the ruling party on the back foot.
The principal opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Delhi’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have demanded a probe into the genocide by a special investigation team (SIT) while two allies of the Congress party, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the National Conference (NC) have openly lodged their disagreement with Gandhi.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday called on Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung demanding an SIT probe into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, in which about 3,000 Sikhs were killed in Delhi alone following assassination of Gandhi’s grandmother and the then prime minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards.
“The meeting went on for around half an hour. The lieutenant-governor has assured that his [Kejriwal’s] request would be considered and forwarded to the prime minister’s office,” a Delhi government spokesman said.
A delegation from the BJP and SAD also met Jung with similar demands, forcing the Congress party spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala to say that the party is ready for any probe.
“Our party is ready for any logical or judicial inquiry into the riots,” Surjewala said.
Incidentally the 1984 riots took place in the early days of Gandhi’s father Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership. Rajiv Gandhi had then defended it saying earth shakes if a big tree falls, leading to the alienation of Sikhs with the Congress party.
“First of all, I wasn’t involved in the riots at all. It wasn’t that I was part of it,” Rahul had replied in an interview in response to the question if he would apologise to the Sikh community for it.
The Delhi cabinet is slated to discuss parameters of the SIT probe into the 1984 riots on Friday at its scheduled meeting with Delhi law minister Manish Sisodia saying the investigation was part of the AAP’s poll manifesto.
Many within the Congress party feel that the move to present the Congress party’s unnamed prime ministerial candidate Rahul Gandhi as a media-friendly leader and use print and television to reach out to masses may have boomeranged on the party.
A section of the party is already blaming Gandhi’s media managers who on their own opted to grant his first ever televised interview to the Times Now channel due to its wider reach. The interview was conducted by the fiery editor-in-chief of Times Now Arnab Goswami, who many politicians dread due to his grilling tactics.
“It was a wrong decision. The request for interview to NDTV was long pending and we had promised to NDTV that they will get his first interview. Barkha Dutt would have definitely asked much softer questions than Arnab,” a national general secretary of the Congress party said.
The feeling within the party is that besides wrong choice of the channel, suggested by the two multinational agencies hired to give Gandhi’s image a makeover ahead of the fast approaching general elections, Gandhi’s immaturity in handling hot and tricky questions may have done more harm than good to the party’s prospects.
“There was nothing wrong in simply saying that he would apologise to the Sikhs since prime minister Manmohan Singh (himself a Sikh) had apologised for it in the past rather than compare it with the 2002 Gujarat riots and trying to suggest that the then Congress party government had no role in 1984 riots,” the Congress party general secretary said.
Three prominent Delhi Congress leaders including two then federal ministers were accused of leading the mob that killed Sikh men and women in several parts of the metropolis. While H.K.L. Bhagat has died, his colleagues Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar are still facing charges for fanning the riots.
