Delhi CM cautions Cong on Tytler-Sajjan issue

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit had cautioned the Congress party on the issue of giving tickets for Lok Sabha elections to Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar whose names had cropped up in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and suggested that it could wait for the court verdict before fielding them.         

"I think it would have been a wiser thing to do," Dikshit told NDTV when asked whether she thought the party should have waited till a court verdict in the cases against the leaders accused in the riots cases.         

The candidature of Tytler and Sajjan Kumar came under question after a Sikh journalist lobbed a shoe at Home Minister P Chidambaram to protest the clean chit given to Tytler by the CBI in anti-Sikh riots case.         

The party dropped them from the electoral fray following protests from various quarters and fielded DPCC chief J P Aggarwal in place of Tytler from north-east Delhi and Sajjan Kumar's brother, Ramesh Kumar from South Delhi.         

The Chief Minister said she had conveyed her view that the party could wait because the capital was going to polls in the fourth phase only.         

"I did say that let us wait because we were going into the election only in the fourth round. So there was time, They could have been told.         

"But perhaps the party thought otherwise, I don't want to say 'I said so' or any thing," she said.         

Asked whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself was reluctant in the matter, Dikshit said he did not say anything. He did not say "yes or no anything like that."