With Lok Sabha elections less than 10 days away, the spectre of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots returned to haunt the Congress when a Sikh journalist lobbed a shoe towards Home Minister P Chidambaram at a press conference at the party headquarters here today to protest against the CBI’s clean chit to Jagdish Tytler, one of the accused in the riots case.

While Chidambaram ensured that Dainik Jagran reporter Jarnail Singh was let off without any charge, the incident galvanised the entire political opposition — from the BJP and the Akalis to the Left and the JD(U) — to slam the Congress over tickets to Tytler and Sajjan Kumar.

While all agreed the act itself was “inappropriate,” there was a unanimous endorsement of the message — condemnation of the Congress over what they called its stubborn insistence on patronising Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler and the CBI’s recent clean chit to the latter.

Aware of the potential political fallout in terms of the party’s prospects in Delhi and Punjab, the Congress is learnt to be “reconsidering” its decision to field Tytler from North East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency. In fact, after the CBI clean chit, several top Punjab Congress leaders are learnt to have requested Congress President Sonia Gandhi to “persuade” Tytler to “opt out.”

Asked if the party would review its decision to give tickets to them, AICC spokesperson Ashwini Kumar said, “Congress is a large party and it takes considered decision at an appropriate time. Let’s see what solutions emerge in the future.” Sharma said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi had termed the incidents after the assassination of Indira Gandhi as “unfortunate and shameful”.

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