PM Modi slams Congress over 1984 riots alleges it allowed 'massacre of Sikhs'

    Gurdaspur/Jalandhar (Pb), May 24 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit out at the Congress on Friday over the 1984-anti Sikh riots, alleging that while it allowed the "massacre of Sikhs" and its government at the Centre protected the rioters, he ensured that the guilty were punished.
    Canvassing for the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Lok Sabha poll candidates in Punjab, Modi also alleged that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann cannot take decisions on his own and that he had to go to Tihar Jail in Delhi to take orders from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal.
    At a rally in Jalandhar, the prime minister said the ruling AAP in Punjab had said it would end the drugs trade in the state in two months.
    "Today, drug dealers have been given a free licence in Punjab. Families after families are getting destroyed," he said.
    Referring to a money-laundering case linked to the alleged liquor scam in Delhi, Modi accused AAP leaders of being "wholesale traders of drugs".
    "The people of Punjab have understood that the 'jharoo' (broomstick, the poll symbol of the AAP) party people are themselves wholesale traders of drugs. Why will those who perpetrated such a big liquor scam (in Delhi) not dive into the black money of drugs in Punjab?" he asked the gathering.
    Kejriwal was sent to Tihar Jail by a court in the money-laundering case. The Delhi chief minister is currently out on interim bail to campaign for the polls.
    In Gurdaspur, Modi said, "Dilli ke darbari" are running Punjab.
    "The chief minister cannot take any decision on his own. His master went to jail and the Punjab government started shutting down.
    "To take orders and run the government, the chief minister had to go to Tihar Jail and present his report card to him (Kejriwal)," the prime minister told the rally that was organised to seek support for BJP candidates Dinesh Babbu (Gurdaspur), Taranjit Singh Sandhu (Amritsar) and Anita Som Parkash (Hoshiarpur).
    After June 1, when the last phase of polling is scheduled to be held, the "kattar bhrastachari" (corrupt Kejriwal) will again go to jail, Modi said.
    "Will the Punjab government again be run from jail? Do you want such a government?" he asked the gathering and asserted that the state's development is his priority.
    Targeting the Congress and the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA), Modi said nobody knows the real face of the coalition better than the people of Punjab.
    He alleged that it is the same alliance that inflicted the "maximum wounds" on Punjab. After the country achieved freedom, it gave the wound of partition and then the wound of instability and a long period of unrest, he said.
    "They fuelled separatism in Punjab. Then they got the massacre of Sikhs done in Delhi. Till the time the Congress was in power at the Centre, it used to protect the rioters," the prime minister said, adding, "It was Modi who got the files of the anti-Sikh riots opened. It was Modi who ensured punishment to the guilty."
    He alleged that when Amarinder Singh was the chief minister of Punjab, the Congress wanted to run his government through a "remote control".
    "But Amarinder Singh refused to obey the orders from Dilli ke shehzade (former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi)," he said.
    In Jalandhar, Modi again raised the emotive issue of the Kartarpur corridor to target the Congress, while noting that more than 90,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered in the 1971 Indo-Pak War and before freeing them, the then Indian government could have asked for the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara in return.
    But the Congress did not do so to keep its vote bank happy, he alleged.
    Accusing the Congress of indulging in appeasement politics, Modi claimed that the party got history books written by its favourite historians.
    "Two kinds families were mentioned in these books -- their own family and Mughal families. The result was that several generations could not be properly familiar with the martyrdom of the Sahibzaade (the sons of Guru Gobind Singh)," he said.
    At every important juncture in history, the Congress hid the misdeeds of its vote bank, the prime minister alleged.
    Punjab bore such a huge tragedy of the partition, but even this was not properly taught to children, he claimed, while adding that the Congress felt that its "sins" will come to the fore in that case and its vote bank will not feel good.
    Modi alleged that the AAP has learnt the lesson of Emergency from the Congress.
    The Kejriwal-led party is a photocopy of the Congress, he said as he accused the AAP government in Punjab of targeting the media.
    "It registers cases against those media houses that do not bow down before its threats. My (BJP) state president has taken it upon himself that he will not let the freedom of press be hindered in any way," Modi said.
    He was apparently referring to an FIR lodged against Barjinder Singh Hamdard, the managing editor of the Ajit Group of Newspapers, and 25 others for alleged misappropriation of funds in the construction of the Rs 315-crore Jang-e-Azadi memorial at Kartarpur in Jalandhar.
    Voting for the AAP and the Congress means voting against Punjab, Modi said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)