Digvijaya’s poke to Sidhu: Prevail upon ‘friend Imran Khan’

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, February 19

In a loaded statement that could have implications within the Congress, senior party leader Digvijaya Singh on Tuesday asked Punjab Congress minister Navjot Singh Sidhu to prevail upon his “friend” Imran Khan.

Singh's tongue in cheek remarks come amid the controversy over Sidhu's comments after the Pulwama attack wherein he asked whether an entire nation could be blamed "for a handful of people".

The provocation came in a tweet that read: "Navjot Singh Sidhu ji apne dost Imran bhai ko samjhaiye. Uskii vajah se aap ko gali padh rahi hai (Convince your friend Imran. You (Sidhu) are getting abused because of him)."

Navjot Singh Sidhu ji apne Dost Imran Bhai ko samjhaiye.

— digvijaya singh (@digvijaya_28) February 19, 2019

"I know Modi 'bhakts' are going to troll me for this but I don't care. Imran Khan a cricketer who I admire, can't take on these Muslim fundamentalists and ISI sponsored terrorist groups, I can't believe," Singh said in a series of tweets.

He also asked the Pakistan Prime Minister to show "guts" and hand over Hafiz Saeed and Masood Azhar to India, terming them as "self-confessed perpetrators of terror".

Khan would not only bail Pakistan out of the financial crisis, but also be the front runner for Nobel Peace Prize for doing so, he said.

Singh also called for stopping "unnecessary persecution" of innocent Kashmiri students and traders across the country.

"Do we want Kashmir with the Kashmiris or without Kashmiris? We as a nation have to make a choice," he said.

Singh said India as a nation has to seriously introspect how in last 71 years Kashmir, a valley of communal harmony of Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Pandits brotherhood, has become a valley of communal strife and unrest.

"We are all to be blamed. Can't we for sometime sweep our political differences under the carpet and come together to bring back the communal harmony and Kashmiri Muslim and Kashmiri Hindu brotherhood...which was the hallmark of J&K?" Singh said.

Asserting that it was possible, he asked the leadership of the Congress, the BJP, National Conference, People's Democratic Party and other political parties relevant in Jammu and Kashmir to draw out a roadmap for the next 10 years to achieve this.

Forty Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed when a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 100 kg of explosives into their bus in the state's Pulwama district last week. 

Sidhu said on Friday—a day after a dastardly suicide attack in Pulwama—that nations could not be blamed for a handful of people.

Sidhu said, “There are good, bad and ugly people in our lives. Every place, institution and nation has them. The ugly needs to be punished, but individuals cannot be blamed for a dastardly act.”

He said: “Nations cannot be blamed just for a handful of people. These people have no country, no religion. They act as deterrents in peace process. We need to deal with them strictly”.