NEW DELHI, April 9 – A worried Congress today withdrew its controversial leaders Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar from the electoral fray as the ghost of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots returned to haunt the party over their alleged role in the carnage. “Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar have expressed their sentiments that they do not wish to embarrass the party by contesting Lok Sabha elections when some political parties and individuals have tried to vitiate the atmosphere. They have opted out of Lok Sabha elections.
“The party has accepted their feelings and decided that they will not be Lok Sabha candidates of the Indian National Congress,” party General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi told reporters shortly after Tytler announced his decision to opt out of the race.
The Congress decision comes amid a raging controversy over fielding the two leaders, whose names figured as accused in the 1984 riots, accentuated by the incident of throwing of shoe by a Sikh journalist at Home Minister P Chidambaram at AICC press conference on Tuesday.
The journalist said he was protesting against the clean chit given by CBI to Tytler in the riots case, an issue on which the agency today told a local court here that it had no jurisdiction to go into. The case has been deferred till April 28.
Though the Congress maintained that it was the decision of Tytler and Kumar to withdraw from the race, a meeting late last night on party President Sonia Gandhi’s return from Kerala appeared to have decided on this course.
Sources said Gandhi called Dwivedi after a meeting of the Central Election Committee this afternoon and told him to announce the decision, expected to contain the damage to the party in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi where Sikhs form a considerable chunk of voters.
Though the party accused BJP and Akali Dal of inciting sentiments, the sources said passions this time were intense and there was deliberate attempt to communalise the situation. – PTI
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