In a breaking development, a rift in the Congress party has broken out in the national capital ahead of the Delhi elections. Congress workers have staged a protest over the party's decision to reward 1984 anti-Sikh riots convict Sajjan Kumar's aide by giving him a ticket.

Sajjan Kumar, 73, is serving a life term in the case relating to the killing of five members of a family in Raj Nagar and the torching of a Gurdwara in Delhi on November 1, 1984. On December 17, 2018, the Patiala House Court convicted Kumar in this case and awarded him a life term.

Agitated by the same, the Congress workers from Bawana constituency have staged a protest outside Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee office (DPCC), stating that it would tarnish the image of the party. This comes two days after senior MP Congress leader Digvijaya Singh hit out at the party for purportedly betraying its ideology.

Digvijaya's Congress Criticism

A couple of days ago, two senior Congress leaders in Madhya Pradesh also had sparred over the party's electoral and ideological compulsions. Speaking at an event in MP, Digvijaya Singh said that his party is focussing on electoral gains and is compromising with the ideology. Terming it as a "mistake", Singh said that to revive the party's position, the Congress party needs to focus on its ideology. On his remarks, CM Kamal Nath said that the party may fail to project its ideology strongly among people but the core remains intact.

The Election Commission of India in its press conference stated that the National Capital of Delhi will cast its votes in a single phase for the assembly elections on February 8, Saturday. The counting of votes for the assembly polls will take place on February 11.

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Sajjan Kumar convicted in 1984 Anti-Sikh riots

Sajjan Kumar, 73, who is lodged in jail, had resigned from the Congress party after he was convicted by the Delhi High Court. The case in which he was convicted and sentenced relates to the killing of five Sikhs in Delhi Cantonment's Raj Nagar Part-I area of southwest Delhi on November 1-2 in 1984, and burning down of a Gurudwara in Raj Nagar Part-II. Anti-Sikh riots had broken out after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards. The Delhi High Court in its December 17 verdict last year awarded him life imprisonment for the "remainder of his natural life" in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots case. It charged Kumar with offences of criminal conspiracy and abetment in commission of crimes of murder, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of communal harmony and defiling and destruction of a gurudwara.

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