Parties are involved in a bitter fight as actual contents of a resolution on the anti-Sikh riots remain a mystery.

New Delhi: Almost 48 hours after the Delhi Vidhan Sabha passed a resolution about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the contents of the resolution – the one that was actually passed – remain mired in mystery.

While the Aam Aadmi Party government, which brought the resolution, claimed that the resolution passed by the Assembly had no reference to the addendum to the effect that former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi be stripped of his Bharat Ratna for allegedly looking away when Sikhs were being killed in the riots, BJP MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa asserted that the resolution that was passed had reference to Gandhi.

According to Sirsa, the Vidhan Sabha has now passed the resolution. “The only way to expunge these words would be to bring a new motion on the floor of the House,” he said.

A controversy broke out after the Assembly passed the resolution and AAP MLA Alka Lamba, a former Congress leader, took to Twitter to make public her opposition to her party’s move to demand that Gandhi’s Bharat Ratna be taken back.

In a tweet, which she later deleted, Lamba said she had been asked to support the resolution, something that she refused to do and walked out of the House. She also said she was ready for whatever punishment that her party wanted to give her.

She also claimed later that she had been asked to resign as MLA by AAP convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, a claim rebutted by party’s national secretary Pankaj Gupta.

“I am not aware of any such developments. Neither have I received Alka’s resignation, nor have I served her a notice,” he told ThePrint.

However, while AAP leader and Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia told mediapersons Saturday that the party didn’t favour withdrawal of the Bharat Ratna from Gandhi, Sirsa maintained that the party was playing a double-game.

“We are not of the view that Bharat Ratna should be taken back from Rajiv Gandhi,” Sisodia said.

Confusion over resolution

AAP spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said the resolution circulated in the Assembly had no reference to Gandhi but party legislator Somnath Bharti had scribbled the addendum on the resolution that ended up being read out by its MLA Jarnail Singh.

It was this resolution that had the purported reference to Gandhi.

However, while Lamba spoke out, later also tweeting that she was happy her party had appreciated the good things Gandhi had done for the nation, Bharti, who purportedly introduced the controversial bits, has chosen to remain quiet.

Jarnail Singh, who moved the resolution, asserted that since an amendment wasn’t passed to include Rajiv Gandhi’s name in the resolution the original has been ratified by the House.

“Technically, an amendment has to be read before the resolution. Since that wasn’t done, the original has been passed,” Singh told ThePrint.

Sources claim that the party was looking to pass the resolution declaring 1984 as a “genocide” to appeal to the substantial Sikh votebank in Delhi and Haryana.

However, there have also been suggestions that the AAP is keen to tie up with the Congress for the next Lok Sabha elections and any negative reference to Gandhi in the resolution would have ended any possibility of such a pact.

AAP on a sticky wicket?

Referring to this, Sirsa said, “They have been caught in a trap. They desperately wanted to ally with the Congress, (but) this complicated things. After the resolution was passed, they (AAP) must have got a frantic call from the Gandhi family. After all, they are trying to ally with them. Then the party went into damage control mode. Alka Lamba was to be the sacrificial lamb, but she outsmarted them. Once Lamba realised that AAP was willing to throw her under the bus, she turned on them and made a martyr of herself to appear like a hero to the Congress.”

The Congress wasn’t ready to buy the AAP’s story.

“Soon after the Speaker passes the resolution, he asks everyone to stand up for this important resolution,” Ajay Maken, the Delhi Congress president, said while speaking about a video clip of the assembly proceedings.

Maken said the Congress had two demands – that Kejriwal should apologise for the words against Gandhi and expunge them from the resolution.

ThePrint’s YouTube channel is now active and buzzing. Please subscribe here.