Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Akali Dal MP from Bhatinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal has hit out strongly against Rahul Gandhi after he shared an emotional account of his grandmother Indira Gandhi`s assassination in 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards and accused the BJP of indulging in politics of hatred.
“It was there for anybody to tell you that the entire youth of Punjab was wiped out in the name of terrorism. What was Mr Gandhi thinking? What was Mrs Gandhi doing at that time when she was killing other people`s sons and husbands?... a place of worship which is worshipped by every Sikh...she goes, gives orders to demolish that place and kill people there. What did she think? She would get away with it scot- free?” Badal said in an interview to English news channel NDTV.
Harsimrat, who is also the wife of Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal, added: “And then when Mr Rahul’s father - after his mother paid the price for her deed - he targetedly gives instructions to finish off every Sikh, when he says that the ground shakes when a big tree falls what was he indicating? And then his goons of the likes of Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler and other in a targeted manner pull out Sikhs from their homes and in front of young children, young mothers and old mothers, their husbands, children and grandchildren are slaughtered in thousands not just one or two. Mr Rahul Gandhi does not feel their pain when he, for 30 years, shielded the perpetrators of these crimes.”
“When he (Rahul) talks about Gujarat, Muzaffarnagar, Jammu and Kashmir, why does his tongue shake when he talks about 1984 riots, when he cannot mention the mother of all these (riots), where in thousands lost their lives and it is for the world to know, he doesn’t mention that but he mentions others,” he said.
“For example in Gujarat there is a Supreme Court monitored team which is looking into it and many have gone to jail, how many Congress leaders have gone to jail? Who doesn’t know the role played by Tytler and Sajjan Kumar? (in ’84 riots),”” she said.
Ms Badal’s controversial rebut to Rahul is sure to increase political tempers on the issue.
Rahul Gandhi had said the politics of hatred, which he attributed to the BJP, had cost his family heavily. "Hatred killed my grandmother, my father, maybe it`ll kill me. I don`t care," he said.
