Varinder Walia and Sanjay Bumbroo
Tribune News ServiceAmritsar, November 18
Describing Operation Bluestar and Delhi riots in the aftermath of the assassination of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi as great tragedies, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi said those responsible for the anti-Sikh riots must be punished.
He was in the holy city, along with former chief election commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh, to review preparations for the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) elections in Punjab.
It is the second visit of Rahul to Amritsar after September 23.
Rahul’s statement on Operation Bluestar assumes significance after his grandmother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, earned the animosity of the Sikh community for ordering Operation Bluestar to flush out militants holed up in the shrine in June 1984.
Earlier, on December 28, Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi, president, Indian National Congress, had expressed anguish and regret over the 1984 happenings. She had stated about eight years ago: “I have prayed at the shrine that such events must never happen again”.
The scion of the Gandhi family, Rahul said the entire Gandhi family was proud of the Sikh community that always stood by them in their times of grief. He said when Indira Gandhi lost the elections in 1977, it were the Sikhs who supported her and he (Rahul) was witness to that. He said he did not notice any hostility between the Sikhs and his family during his earlier three-day visit to the state. He said he had also paid obeisance at the Golden Temple on his last visit.
He lashed out at Raj Thackeray, president, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, for dividing the country on regional lines. He said every person was Indian and had every right to settle in any part of the country. “Every Indian should have a right to work where he wants to. We believe that every Indian is an equal,” he said. He, however,
side stepped questions over the move of the Maharashtra government to reserve 80 per cent of jobs for natives of the state.
Rahul said he (Rajnath) was a senior politician and had a lot of experience. He said he considered himself to be a “bachcha” (child), but he (Rajnath) should know that that a child like him constituted 70 per cent of the Indian population who had new ideas to take the country to new heights.
The Congress general secretary asked the BJP to introspect on the links between Malegaon blast suspects and its affiliates and said the government was doing a good job in containing terrorism. On the allegations of BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani that the Congress was “politicising” terror, he said, “I have no response”.
Talking about the elections to the PYC, he said the election process of electing committees at the block, district and state levels would be completed by December 27 and claimed that about 3,000 to 3,500 youths would be elected to the PYC.
Earlier, hundreds of Congress workers had assembled near the Circuit House where Rahul arrived directly from the airport. However, only select leaders up to the DCC presidents were allowed to meet him. Annoyed at this, the workers raised slogans against sleuths of the SPG and said if they were not allowed to meet Rahul then who would vote for Dr Manmohan Singh who is likely to contest in the next parliamentary elections from Amritsar.
