Madhya Pradesh is gearing up for assembly elections, scheduled to take place later this year. On February 19, a senior Congressman and a member of Rajya Sabha, Digvijaya Singh stated that Kamal Nath would represent the party in the elections. “We will fight the elections in MP under the leadership of State Congress chief Kamal Nath. So, he will be the CM face,” he said while addressing the media.
Digvijaya Singh was asked about Congress’ CM face when he was attending a party meeting in Rehti in the Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh.
Kamal Nath, a close associate of Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi, has been a controversial figure in Indian politics since his role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
In a five-hour siege on November 1, 1984, two Sikh men were burned alive at the Rakab Ganj Gurudwara, which is located across the street from Parliament House. The gurudwara’s structure was also damaged by the mob.
It was widely reported that, Nath was “controlling the crowd, and that the mob was looking to him for directions.” Harvinder Singh Phoolka and Manoj Mitta’s book ‘When a Tree Shook Delhi’ explicitly documents Nath’s involvement in the riots.
His participation has been confirmed by numerous eyewitness accounts, including those of journalists who were covering the riots. Their testimonies are with the Nanavati Commission.
Despite the allegations against him, Kamal Nath continued to hold significant party positions and was inducted into the Union Council of Ministers multiple times, when Congress-led governments were in the centre. He was also appointed Madhya Pradesh’s 18th chief minister, and served as Leader of the Opposition in the state’s Legislative Assembly from March 2020 to April 2022, after the fall of his government.
Sikh political figures have frequently raised the issue of his complicity in the riots. Bhartiya Janta Party leader, Manjinder Sirsa who was then in The Shiromani Akali Dal, attacked Nath, saying, “Congress has rubbed salt in the wounds of Sikhs,” after then Congress president Rahul Gandhi cleared Nath’s name as the CM of Madhya Pradesh in 2018. He called Nath’s selection for the CM post “shameful.”
Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, a leader of the Delhi BJP, protested the decision by going on an indefinite hunger strike in Delhi’s Tailak Vihar area, which is home to many victims’ families from the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The 15-month-old Congress government in Madhya Pradesh fell in 2020, as all 22 MLAs who supported Jyotiraditya Scindia, who had quit the party earlier, resigned. Kamal Nath who was the CM, resigned ahead of a trust vote ordered by the Supreme Court, as he fell short of numbers.
The pogrom against the Sikh community was reportedly initiated by the Congress Party, after the assassination of the then-prime minister Mrs Indira Gandhi by her two Sikh bodyguards. Rajiv Gandhi, who was made the PM after the demise of his mother, had justified the carnage, saying, “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes,” in a public meeting held in the memory of the late prime minister.
Sam Pitroda, the head of the Indian Overseas Congress in 2019, mocked the riot victims in 2019, by brushing off the atrocity and remarking, “Hua to hua (riots happened in 1984, so what)”. He eventually issued an apology.
Congress had released a press statement, attacking BJP and claiming that the party has “shown the moral and political courage to punish people and leaders accused of violence/role in 1984.”
In reality, the political party has rewarded the leaders like Kamal Nath, Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar with lucrative party posts and election tickets.
