Chandigarh: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday trained guns on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, saying his rally in Delhi on the anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots can only “rub salt in the wounds of the victims”.
He was addressing a gathering in Chandigarh after the inauguration and foundation stone laying ceremony of various development projects worth Rs 258 crore.
“Rahul Gandhi’s November 1 ‘jalsa’ in Delhi will only rub salt in wounds of anti-Sikh riot victims,” Shah said. Attacking the Congress over the riots, Shah said that thousands were killed in the riots.
“The day the Sikh genocide happened, on that very day, they had to hold a rally,” Shah said slamming the INDIA bloc for its rally at Ramlila Maidan in the national capital.
The opposition INDIA bloc is holding the ‘Chalo Dilli’ protest in the national capital as part of its campaign against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged electoral irregularities.
Hatred was the only takeaway from Rahul Gandhi’s “mohabbat ki dukaan” for holding a rally on such a dark day, the Union minister said.
“If you want to become PM, stay in mock parliament your entire life. Your turn won’t come,” Shah added.
“Telling lies, spreading anarchy, not letting Parliament function, this is your ‘fitrat’ (true nature),” Shah said of the opposition.
Notably, INDIA bloc on Saturday carried out a symbolic “public impeachment” of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, accusing him of deleting votes to steal elections and demanding that he is tried in court for treason and jailed.
The minister said that on November 1, 1984, thousands of Sikhs were brutally murdered in Delhi during the anti-Sikh riots. “Thousands of Sikhs were burnt alive. Many Sikhs had to leave their homes, many children were orphaned, many sisters were widowed and homes of many were burnt,” said Shah.
“And the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi gave a statement and I saw that on TV and I cannot forget that for rest of my life. He had said when a big tree falls, the earth shakes,” he said.
After murder of thousands of Sikhs, only Congress leaders can make such a remark, he added.
Shah said when Narendra Modi’s government came to power in 2014, it reopened all the cases of all those who indulged in 1984 anti-Sikh riots and a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the next of kin of each person killed in the riots was given while prominent leaders of the Congress were put behind the bars.
Shah added, “India has never witnessed, nor will it ever witness, riots of this kind, incited by a political party.”
