Sukhbir trying to malign Rajiv Gandhi’s image, says Amarinder

CHANDIGARH: Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh has assailed the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for resorting to desperate measures to malign former Rajiv Gandhi through “false propaganda” aimed at wrongly implicating the former prime minister in riots that took place more than three decades ago.

Lashing out at SAD president Sukhbir Badal for questioning Rajiv’s role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the chief minister ridiculed the efforts of the Akali leaders to defame the former PM, stating that he was not even present in Delhi when the violence broke out. Rajiv was in Contai, some 150km from Kolkata (then Calcutta), on an election tour of West Bengal, Amarinder pointed out, accusing Sukhbir of blatantly and deliberately misinterpreting senior Congress leader Jagdish Tytler’s statements in a TV interview.

He flayed the SAD chief for trying to link Rajiv with a sting operation which Tytler had already dismissed as being a doctored video.