1984
Senior Aide to Former President of India & Congress Appointee Indicts Rahul Gandhi & His Party
FIRST POST
In a massive embarrassment for the Congress party, just days after party
vice-president Rahul Gandhi said in his interview that he remembered
the 1984 Congress government doing "everything it could" to quell the
anti-Sikh massacres, the press secretary of the then President of India, Zail
Singh -- a Congress Party stalwart and appointee -- has said that this may be a less than accurate representation of
the facts.
Speaking to The Indian Express,
former senior Presidential Aide Tarlochan Singh refuted Rahul Gandhi's contention that the widespread killings of innocent citizens which
were carried out on the streets of India's capital (and 40 other cities) in broad dayight after the assassination were spontaneous.
Calling the violence "orchestrated and sponsored", Tarlochan Singh revealed that the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi -- father of Rahul Gandhi -- did not even take calls from the President when he tried to get in touch with him to discuss the situation.
Tarlochan Singh has been a BJP supporter for several years, having been Chairman
of the National Commission for Minorities during the NDA regime and then
sent to Rajya Sabha from Haryana in 2004, also backed by the BJP.
Despite his political leanings, his comments are expected to add fuel to
the outrage that has erupted after Rahul Gandhi's interview to the Times
Now news channel.
"Indira Gandhi was shot dead in the morning, but the first [killings] started
in the evening. Gyaniji collected this information himself that a
meeting of Congress leaders - attended by Arun Nehru and Delhi leaders
like H K L Bhagat, Jagdish Tytler and all - took place before Rajiv
Gandhi arrived from Kolkata. They decided to give a slogan ‘khoon ka
badla khoon' - ("Blood for blood!"). The first [killings] then took place near INA market,” he is
quoted as having told The Indian Express.
The President got to know of the violence soon after Rajiv Gandhi was
sworn in as Prime Minister in the evening. Through the evening, the PM
and then home minister P V Narasimha Rao did not respond to the
President's attempts to speak to them, with senior leaders reportedly
busy with making funeral arrangements, the report adds.
"The whole of next day, neither the PM nor the Home Minister took any
interest in defusing the situation or help the victims,” he has disclosed.
In the interview, Rahul Gandhi said: "The difference between the 84
riots (sic) and the riots in Gujarat was that in 1984 the Government was
trying to stop the riots. I remember, I was a child then, I remember the
Government was doing everything it could to stop the riots."
["Riots," Mr Gandhi?]
Hartosh Singh Bal has argued on Firstpost that this amounted to brazenly denying the truth.
"What did he think doing "everything" meant? Given that he invokes his
father's legacy at every step what did he think of his father's
statement about a great tree falling? Why was it that for him the legal
process was a defence where the Congress was concerned, it wasn't where
the BJP was concerned?" writes Hartosh.
[Courtesy: First Post. Edited for sikhchic.com]
February 2, 2014
Conversation about this article
1: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), February 03, 2014, 9:09 AM.
Rahul Gandhi might want to be careful about using a minority community as political fodder. Look where the same tactics got his grandmother ... and his father. It was Hindus themselves, his co-religionists, who 'took care' of the latter, as they did his namesake, Mohandas Gandhi.
2: Sunny Grewal (Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada), February 03, 2014, 9:46 AM.
Rajiv Gandhi was responsible for getting India involved in the civil war in Sri Lanka. The LTTE -- also Hindus -- targeted him for assassination for having Indian troops take the side of the majority Sinhala government. He tried to play ethnic politics similar to his mother, and it seems as if his son is now also following in the family's footsteps.
3: Kaala (Punjab), February 08, 2014, 4:06 AM.
And you are telling us this now?! Where were you all these years? And what do you hope to achieve by saying this now? [An appointment with the BJP/RSS govt., if and when it comes to power?]