Choose between community & party, Sukhbir tells Capt

Lambi (Muktsar)

SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal today dared Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to choose between his community and the party on the issue of “massacre of thousands of Sikhs by the Congress goons in 1984”.

While campaigning in favour of his wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal in Lambi today, Sukhbir claimed that it was ridiculous that on the one hand Amarinder was admitting that almost all major members of the Rajiv Gandhi coterie were directly involved in the anti-Sikh massacre while on the other he gives a clean chit not only to Rajiv, but even to the Congress party. “He has named Sajjan Kumar, HKL Bhagat, Dharam Das Shastri, Lalit Maken and Arjun Das — all not only Rajiv loyalists but also the ones who were rewarded by the then Prime Minister. And now Sam Pitroda, whose statement Captain describes as shocking, is no less than the principal adviser to Rahul Gandhi. So what else is the Congress party minus its top leadership,” Sukhbir asked.

He also threw some questions directly at Amarinder by saying, “Did the Congress throw any of the leaders named by you as guilty out of the party? Were they not rewarded with tickets and Cabinet berths in the Union Government?”

He asked Amarinder to make a choice between his community, which suffered the massacre, and his party that “executed” the massacre. “But I know you will never do that. You will only utter a few ritual words to show your sympathy for the community. The Sikhs don’t need your sympathy if you can’t be brave and honest enough to stand by them against the party,” he said.Commenting on the ongoing Lok Sabha polls, Sukhbir challenged Amarinder to present his government’s performance as the main poll issue. “You are running away from the issues of governance, development and welfare in the state,” he said.