CHANDIGARH: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday started the Punjab leg of his Bharat Jodo Yatra with a visit to the Golden Temple. Sporting a Sikh turban, Rahul offered prayers at the gurudwara in Amritsar.
The foot march entered Punjab from Haryana through the Shambhu border. Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party hit out at Rahul, calling him “anti-Sikh”. Rahul, who landed at the Amritsar airport in the afternoon, was accompanied to the Golden Temple by Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, local MP Gurjit Singh Aujla and other party leaders.
Earlier in the morning, he resumed the yatra from Shahpur in Ambala Cantt during which he was joined by party leader Raj Babbar. The rally on Wednesday will pass through Mandi Gobindgarh and halt for the night at Khanna. Rahul targeted the BJP-led Haryana government, saying the government has been dividing Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, farmers and non-farmers and people of different castes.
A message issued by him read, “The people of Haryana are blessed with everything they need for a good life. However, their potential is being wasted. The farmers of Haryana led the historic movement against the three black farm laws, and many were martyred. Still, the agricultural crisis endures. In the land of doodh, dahi and gur, it is a tragedy that farmers’ children no longer want to be farmers.”
He added that the Haryana has the “highest youth unemployment rate and desperate youth look abroad for jobs”. Rahul also criticised GST and demonetisation, and pointed out that sports academies are being shut down in the state. “Not one person we met in Haryana could name a single step the BJP government has taken to solve these problems,” he stated.
“Governments of past decades planted the seeds of development, which are yielding fruits now. Today’s government is busy building a nafrat ka bazaar.” Meanwhile, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal said it was condemnable that Rahul Gandhi was leading the yatra in the state. “No one has damaged Punjab as much as the Gandhi family, which has a history of breaking India,” he said.
“Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the attack on the Golden Temple using tanks which led to the destruction of Akal Takht Sahib,” Badal said, adding that Rajiv Gandhi engineered the 1984 genocide of Sikhs and even justified it by saying that when a big tree falls, the ground shakes. Sukhbir said that the Gandhi family is also responsible for robbing Punjab of its river waters and handing them over forcibly to Rajasthan.
The BJP’snational spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill too slammed Rahul, saying the Congress’ anti-Sikh sentiment has not been washed away. “It has only flourished and nourished as time has passed,” he said. On the other hand, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh hit out at the BJP for criticising former Army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor after he participated in the yatra in Haryana. Without taking any names, Ramesh said, “While there is diversity in our society, that is being misused so that society can be divided.”