1984 riots victims to support SAD-BJP candidates

LUDHIANA: The families of victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots have decided to support SAD-BJP candidates in the coming Lok Sabha elections in Punjab.

The 1984 Sikh Katl-e-Aam Welfare Society (Punjab) president Surjit Singh president and its women's wing president Gurdip Kaur said this here after a meeting. They said the Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab had played a commendable role in rehabilitation of the victims by providing them flats and various other facilities including education, jobs and loan at concessional rates.

The Congress party, they said, could never be pardoned for the killings of Sikhs. Lashing out at Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate H S Phoolka, Singh charged that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal were two sides of the same coin.

"Congress and AAP were both hatching a conspiracy to divide the Sikh votes in Punjab by putting some Sikh leaders as AAP candidates," he said. Singh refuted Phoolka's claim that he had not charged even a single paisa as fee for contesting the cases of the 1984 riots victims in the court. "The fact is he (Phoolka) charged lakhs of rupees from the SGPC and Delhi Sikh Gurudwra Management Committee in this context," he said.