A rattled Congress today withdrew leaders Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar from the electoral fray as the ghost of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots returned to haunt the party. Not wanting to alienate the Sikhs on the eve of general elections, the Congress leadership decided to withdraw both leaders following the din over the CBI clean chit to Tytler in one of the riot cases. Tytler, the party candidate in North East Delhi, and Sajjan Kumar, contesting the South Delhi seat, were called by senior party leaders Pranab Mukherjee and Ahmed Patel and told to opt out of the race, according to Congress sources.

“The party leadership has decided that Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar will not contest the Lok Sabha elections. They will work for the party. So far as their replacement is concerned, it will be decided shortly,” AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi announced this evening.

This came two days after a Sikh journalist, not satisfied with the explanation on the CBI clean chit to Tytler, threw a shoe at Home Minister P Chidambaram during a press conference. The incident had a ripple effect with demonstrations across Punjab and Sikhs protesting today outside a Delhi court where the case was being heard.

Though the Congress tried to take the moral high ground by withdrawing the candidature of Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, it was evident that the decision had been forced by political exigency. Their candidature was announced on March 22, over a week before the CBI sought cancellation of the case against Tytler. In 2005, Tytler had to resign from the Union Cabinet after his indictment by the Nanavati Commission. When the Central Election Committee headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi decided to give them tickets last month, there was no change in the facts of the case because Tytler had till then not been given a clean chit by the CBI.

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