Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, responding to a question on Congress’s role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots admitted his party’s mistake saying “he was not present when the riots took place”, and added he is happy to take responsibility for ‘everything the Congress party has ever done wrong in its history”.
Rahul made the statement in reply to a Sikh man’s question at Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University in the US two weeks ago.
During a Q&A session, a Sikh man confronted Gandhi over his earlier statement and asked “You create a fear among Sikhs about what BJP would look like, you talked about how politics should be fearless, we don’t just want to wear kadas, we don’t just want to tie turbans, we want freedom of expression, which has not been allowed under the Congress Party in the past.”
He then referred to Sajjan Kumar, the Congress leader who has been sentenced to life imprisonment in a case related to the killing of a father-son duo in the Saraswati Vihar area in Delhi during the 1984 Sikh riots, and accused the Congress party of shielding such leaders.
Rahul replied to the Sikh man’s question saying, “The statement I made was that do we want an India where people are uncomfortable to express their religion? As far as mistakes of Congress Party are concerned, a lot of those happened when I was not there, but I am more than happy to take responsibility for everything the Congress party has ever done wrong in its history.”
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Speaking further he said, “I have publicly stated that what happened in the 80s was wrong, I have been to the Golden Temple multiple times, I have extremely good relationships with the Sikh community in India.”