Ridiculing Sukhbir Singh Badal for his statements blaming the Gandhi family for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots...

Chandigarh, Dec 23 (PTI) Ridiculing Sukhbir Singh Badal for his statements blaming the Gandhi family for the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Saturday said the Akali Dal president had packed his bags and gone to the US for studies when the violence erupted. Amarinder Singh said while he had personally witnessed the developments and had the first-hand knowledge of the sequence of events, the Badals had conveniently disappeared from the scene during the turbulent times".

The chief minister termed Sukhbir Badal's statements blaming the Gandhi family for the riots as "completely baseless and senseless" saying they were not even remotely connected with the violence. While Rajiv Gandhi was out electioneering in West Bengal, Rahul was just a school-going child at the crucial time, and neither had any role to play in the riots, in which a few individual Congress leaders were named by the victims, said the chief minister in a statement.

Amarinder Singh to Sukhbir Badal

He also accused the Akali Dal president of making a desperate bid to revive his electoral fortunes ahead of the 2019 general elections by seeking to drag the Gandhis' name in the 1984 riots. He (Sukhbir Singh) was not even around at the time of the incidents and is dragging the Gandhi family into the case to get his virtually defunct Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) back into limelight, he said.

The chief minister also questioned Sukhbir Singh Badal's silence over the alleged complicity of many saffron leaders in the anti-Sikh riots. There were, in fact, several RSS and BJP workers named in the FIRs, to whom Sukhbir had never eluded. It clearly suggests that his concern for the pain suffered by the Sikh community during the riots is a mere hogwash, aimed only at garnering votes in the Lok Sabha elections, Amarinder Singh said.

Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar

Amarinder Singh had attacked Sukhbir Singh Badal two days ago too over his attempts to "drag" the "innocent" Gandhi family into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. Earlier, Amarinder Singh had hailed the Delhi High Court verdict which sentenced former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar to life term, and expressed confidence that others guilty of the heinous crime too will be "paid back in the same coin".