RAHUL RUNS RIOT IN FOREIGN LAND

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has described the 1984 anti- Sikh riots as a “very painful tragedy” and said he was “100 per cent” for the punishment for those involved in any violence against anybody.

Nearly 3,000 Sikhs were killed in the riots in 1984 following the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards when the Congress government was in power at the Centre.

Mr Gandhi, who is on a two- day visit to the UK, told the audience of UKbased parliamentarians and local leaders that the incident was a tragedy and painful experiences, but disagreed with the view that the Congress was “involved”.

Mr Gandhi has also said that people support populist leaders like US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi because they are angry over not having jobs.

The Congress president said there is a systematic attempt to impose one ideology on the country, the ideology coming straight from Nagpur. There are attempts to centralise power. Gandhi again maintained that “there is a lot of similarity between Muslim Brotherhood and RSS. They use democratic processes to capture power”.

He said that “both the organisations were formed in the 1920s, both believe in institutional capture and both were banned, particularly the RSS was banned after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination”.

In another remark Mr Gandhi said that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has no job except spending a lot of time working on people's visas. Swaraj is known for quick action on complaints or requests made by citizens in India or aboard, and has been praised for her alacrity with which she responds on Twitter.