Tytler, Sajjan shooed out

New Delhi

April 9: The journalist, Mr Jarnail Singh’s shoe, which was lobbed at the Union home minister, Mr P. Chidamb-aram, at an AICC briefing on Tuesday but went wide off the mark, may have finally hit home. On Thursday it led to the departure of the controversial Congress candidates, Mr Jagdish Tytler and Mr Sajjan Kumar, from the Lok Sabha contest.

The Congress, under intense pressure and with Sikh anger snowballing over the prolonged failure to act against those responsible for the anti-Sikh riots of 1984, withdrew Mr Tytler and Mr Kumar from the Northeast Delhi and South Delhi constituencies.

Both leaders are facing charges for alleged involvement in these riots. While a Delhi court on Thursday adjourned till April 28 further consideration of the CBI’s closure report giving Mr Tytler a clean chit, the Congress refused to take any electoral risk and its high command decided to drop both candidates.

Announcing the party’s decision, the senior Con-gress leader, Mr Janardhan Dwivedi, said: “Sensing the gravity of the situation and to maintain social harmony, the party has decided to replace both Mr Tytler and Mr Kumar. The names of the new candidates from both constituencies will be announced in a day or two.” The choice of new candidates has been left to the party president, Mrs Sonia Gandhi.

Speaking on television, Mr Chidambaram tried to assuage the frayed nerves of the Sikh community by saying that “not enough people have been punished” for the anti-Sikh massacres of 1984. This added to the troubles of both Mr Tytler and Mr Kumar.

That the script was being prepared became somewhat evident when Mr Tytler, sensing the party’s mood, earlier Thursday announced his resolve to pull out of the Lok Sabha contest.

Speaking to the media at his residence, a visibly-perturbed Mr Tytler said: “The entire episode has caused embarrassment to me, my party and my family. I have no complaint against the judiciary and the investigating agency. One thing I will definitely say ... that the media did not understand the case.”

Earlier, appearing before the court of additional chief metropolitan magistrate, Mr Rakesh Pandit, CBI counsel, Mr Sanjay Kumar, contended that the case should be heard by a sessions court as it was related to the offence of murder, and that the lower court did not have the power to pass an order on the closure report.

“We have already filed a chargesheet against another accused, Suresh Kumar Paniwala, in this case, and the court should take cognisance of it, and refer the matter to a sessions court,” he said. Opposing the CBI’s plea, senior advocate, Mr H.S. Phoolka, appearing for the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Man-agement Committee, said it was too late for the investigative agency to come up with such “illogical arguments”. He argued that it was a “a clever ploy of the CBI to delay the proceedings.”

The Delhi court complex saw dozens of angry Sikhs protesting the CBI giving a clean chit to Mr Tytler.