Sukhbir seeks Amarinder's resignation from Congress on Tytler issue

CHANDIGARH: Shiromani Akali Dal president and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal Saturday asked former Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh to quit the Congress party if he honestly felt that the clean chit to Jagdish Tytler was "a shameful act" and that it rubbed salt into the wounds of the Sikh community.

 



"What is he doing in a party responsible for the killing of thousands of innocent Sikhs, then humiliating the community by questioning its loyalty to the country and adding insult to injury by decorating the known killers not just with party tickets but even with cabinet berths.

On whose side is Amarinder really – the killers or their victims?  He wants to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, and this duplicity of character has always been the hall mark of both his personality and his brand of politics. If there is even iota of sincerity in his hypocritical remarks about Jagdish Tytler, he should express solidarity with the," said  Sukhbir Singh Badal in a statement.

Reacting to Captain Amarinder Singh's statement yesterday that the clean chit to Jagdish Tytler could not be justified and that the CBI should not have given it,  Sukhbir Singh Badal said the former Chief Minster was merely trying to shed crocodile tears to befool the Sikh masses. "This man had enacted the drama of resigning from the Congress party over Operation Blue Star but had no qualms in going back to the same party once they offered him the chairmanship of the PPCC. He quit the SAD over what he had called an unjustified police entry into the Golden Temple in 1986 but later became the Chair-person of the Parliamentary Board of the same Akali faction in 1992, reportedly following a promise from  Arun Nehru that he would be made the Chief Minister of the Akali government to be formed after the elections.

That didn't materialize as Congress formed the government under Beant Singh, and Amarinder was back in Congress. And all these years, he has remained in that party despite the fact that he knew what the Sikhs felt about the 1984 massacre against the members of the community. Not even one did he raise his voice against Jagdish Tytler, and others in the Congress party charged with organizing the murder of thousands of innocent Sikhs. He has now even forgotten the Operation Blue star," said the Deputy Chief Minister.

Badal declared that the  case against Tytler and others would be re-opened once the NDA formed the government at the centre after the Lok Sabha poll. He said that SAD struggle to get justice for the innocent victims and punishment to the guilty would continue unabated, despite betrayal of the Sikh cause by men like Paramjit Singh Sarna and Manjit Singh Calcutta.