BJP Members of Parliament Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Yogender Chandolia and Kamaljeet Sehrawat were summoned and pulled up by party national president Nitin Nabin on Friday for attending the bhog ceremony of former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar and offering condolences on his death.
The action comes less than six months ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, with the BJP apparently keen to avoid annoying the Sikh electorate in the state.
Sajjan Kumar was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the anti-Sikh riot cases of 1984.
Highly placed sources in the party said Nitin Nabin summoned and reprimanded the three Lok Sabha MPs from Delhi and told them that they should not have visited Kumar’s residence. All three have reportedly been asked to explain their conduct.
Nabin’s action came after senior party leader in Punjab HS Phoolka, who has long represented the families of anti-Sikh riot survivors in their arduous legal battle for justice, publicly condemned the MPs’ visit to Kumar’s home in Peeragarhi, Delhi, on Thursday.
“Strongly condemn the visit of three MPs, Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and Yogender Chandolia, to mass murderer Sajjan Kumar’s residence to offer condolences on his death,” said Phoolka, who joined the BJP in April this year.
He said the visit by the MPs was particularly condemnable given that the BJP had consistently supported the anti-Sikh riot survivors’ quest for justice and stood by the victim families in ensuring that Sajjan Kumar remained in jail.
“Sympathy should be reserved for victims and their families, many of whom continue to live with the horrors of those days,” he said, while also calling for a boycott of the three MPs.
BJP national spokesperson RP Singh said the three MPs had visited Sajjan Kumar’s house in their personal capacity and not as representatives of the party.
The Lok Sabha constituencies represented by Bidhuri (South Delhi), Sehrawat (West Delhi) and Chandolia (North West Delhi) were carved out of the erstwhile Outer Delhi constituency, which Sajjan Kumar represented in the Lok Sabha as a Congress leader. The three MPs belong to the same influential community that Kumar represented.
Even after his death, Kumar remains a deeply controversial figure in Sikh-dominated Punjab. This is why several Congress leaders, including former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, criticised Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda and others for praising the controversial leader.
Delhi AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj also took a swipe at the BJP, saying that the three MPs still sympathised with the riot convict.
“The hearts of BJP MPs Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Yogender Chandolia and Ramvir Singh Bidhuri still beat for convicted 1984 Sikh riots killer Sajjan Kumar,” he wrote on X.