As Congress’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ is set to start its Delhi leg tomorrow, party leader Jagdish Tytler, who has been embroiled in a controversy lately, said on Friday that he has decided not to participate in the march. “Rahul Gandhi’s mission is more important and that’s why I have decided not to participate in the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
His statement comes after party sources told ANI on Wednesday that Tytler is “distancing himself” from the yatra as he does not want “any controversy to arise again”.
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Over the last few years, the Congress party had distanced itself from Tytler due to him facing legal issues pertaining to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots after the assassination of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards that eventually claimed the lives of thousands in the sectarian violence.
Tytler’s latest statement, however, contradicts what he said a few days before. On Monday, he said that some people are “only doing politics” and that he “will join” the yatra. “Is there any FIR (in 1984 anti-Sikh riots) against me? CBI has also given me clearance…I will be with the party until my last breath,” he told ANI.
Congress leader and former Punjab minister Pargat Singh suggested that Tytler avoid joining the yatra, the ANI report added.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had also criticised Tytler for his announcement to join the march, with leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa taking a jibe at him for saying his name was cleared by the CBI in the 1984 riots case. “The CBI did not give him clean chit, but it was given during the Congress government,” Sirsa told ANI.
The ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ will reach Delhi via the Badarpur border on Saturday, with its last leg of Haryana finishing by the day’s end.
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