Hooda on Sajjan Kumar: I Never Said Role Model; Hooda’s Non-Apology Fuels Congress Row
Hooda on Sajjan Kumar: Deepender Hooda denies calling Sajjan Kumar a “role model,” but a Congress colleague now wants him removed from the CWC as Sikh groups protest outside Rahul Gandhi’s home.
North Desk Correspondent
Chandigarh, August 23
Three days after his remarks on Sajjan Kumar’s death set off a Congress-wide firestorm, Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda spoke again on Sunday — and rather than settling the row, his statement has opened two new fronts: a dispute over what he actually said, and a revolt from within his own state unit.
What Hooda actually said this time
Facing continued backlash over reports that he had called Sajjan Kumar a “role model” and his death an “irreparable loss,” Hooda denied ever using the phrase. “For the past two days, I have been watching my statement being twisted and presented before people. And an English word is also being inserted into my statement, which I never said, nor did I mean anything remotely like that,” he said.
He then offered conditional regret rather than an apology: “I had no intention of hurting any of our brothers. I cannot even think of hurting the Sikh community or our brothers. If any brother’s sentiments have been hurt, I am your brother and I express my regret. My intention was never to hurt anyone.”
Read closely, the clarification is narrower than it sounds. Hooda disputes only the specific English phrase “role model” — he does not walk back calling Kumar’s death “a loss to the country’s political landscape,” nor his praise for Kumar’s “connect with people and contribution to Delhi’s development.” He is correcting a word, not retracting a sentiment. That distinction is likely to keep the controversy alive rather than close it, since his critics’ objection was never really about one English phrase — it was about praising a convicted man at all.
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The Jat-Sikh defence
Hooda on Sajjan Kumar: In the same statement, Hooda reached for family history to establish he could not harbour anti-Sikh feeling. He said the Sikh community had made “unforgettable sacrifices” for India’s freedom and border defence, and described his own great-grandfather, Chaudhary Maturam Ji, as having been sentenced to Kala Pani alongside Sardar Ajit Singh — the uncle of Bhagat Singh — during the 1907-08 Pagri Sambhal Jatta peasant movement.
That detail is worth noting in its own right: it confirms, in Hooda’s own words, the same Jat-community register we flagged in our earlier piece as the likely explanation for why he spoke about Kumar the way he did in the first place. Faced with backlash, his instinct was to reach for shared Jat-Sikh peasant history rather than to disavow his original framing of Kumar as a community figure worth honouring.
A Congress colleague turns on him
Hooda on Sajjan Kumar: The more damaging development for Hooda came from inside his own party. Kuldeep Sharma, a Congress MLA and former Speaker of the Haryana Assembly, wrote to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge demanding Hooda — a permanent invitee to the Congress Working Committee — be removed from that body over the remarks. Sharma said the statement had sent “shock waves” among the Sikh community and cited “several Sikh friends from Haryana and Punjab” who had expressed resentment, calling it an “irresponsible statement.” He also pointed to the Sikh community’s support for Congress after the farmers’ agitation as something the controversy now put at risk.
This matters because it changes the shape of the story. Until now, the fault line ran between Haryana Congress (Hooda) and Punjab Congress (Channi, Warring) — a state-to-state dispute Congress could plausibly manage by letting each unit speak to its own electorate. A sitting Haryana MLA publicly demanding disciplinary action against Haryana’s own most prominent Congress MP means the split now runs inside Hooda’s home state too.
Pressure reaches Rahul Gandhi
Hooda on Sajjan Kumar: The controversy has also moved beyond party channels. Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Harmeet Singh Kalka led a protest outside Rahul Gandhi’s residence on Sunehri Bagh Road, demanding the Leader of the Opposition personally clarify whether he and the Congress endorse Hooda’s characterization of Kumar. “After Sajjan Kumar’s death, the kind of statements made by Congress leaders describing him as our hero are objectionable. Rahul Gandhi has to clarify today whether Sajjan Kumar is their hero,” a DSGMC leader said, adding that the community’s “wounds” had been “reopened” 42 years on.
AAP has joined the pile-on as well
Hooda on Sajjan Kumar: Punjab MLA Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal said the wounds of 1984 “remained alive” among Sikh families and asked pointedly, “If a senior Congress leader calls Sajjan Kumar his role model, it raises serious questions about the mindset and politics of the party” — while separately demanding clarification from Kharge, Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi by name.
Channi’s language has hardened
Charanjit Singh Channi, who first broke ranks calling it “a sin” to speak Kumar’s name, has since sharpened his language considerably. In fuller remarks, he called Kumar “a murderer of the Sikh community and a traitor” who “orchestrated the conspiracy to have Sikhs killed and massacred,” and said: “This person didn’t even deserve to be in a jail cell; he should have been shot right in a public square. But he died serving his sentence. He didn’t just die anywhere; he died inside a prison, and he had maggots breeding on him there.” Channi also said he had personally demanded strict action against 1984 perpetrators while he was Punjab Chief Minister.
Hooda on Sajjan Kumar: Where this leaves Congress
Three days in, Congress has neither disciplined Hooda nor issued a clear national position through Kharge or Rahul Gandhi — leaving Hooda to manage the fallout with a statement that corrects a word rather than a stance, while a colleague from his own state pushes for his removal from the party’s top decision-making body and Sikh organisations wait outside the party president’s own home for an answer. Whether Kharge or Rahul Gandhi intervenes directly is the next thing to watch.
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