Chandigarh, March 29 ( ) The Mahila Kisan Union castigating the BJP led union government for imposing central laws on the employees of Chandigarh has termed this decision as a unilateral and dictatorial step to end the legal authority of Punjab over the capital of Punjab after depriving state from membership in the Bhakra Beas Management Board.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday, President of Mahila Kisan Union, Bibi Rajwinder Kaur Raju, has strongly condemned the nefarious designs of BJP and termed it an anti-Punjab and anti-Punjabis party which should be strongly opposed by all Punjabis and states who support federal structure. “The Union Home Minister Amit Shah has sought to establish lost ground through political maneuvering after the BJP’s crushing defeat in Chandigarh Municipal Corporation and Punjab elections”, She alleged.
The women leader said abolishing Punjab’s legal and official authority over the UT Chandigarh by replacing the current system with a central law for Chandigarh’s employees and reducing 60 per cent share of Punjab was a direct violation of the Punjab Reorganization Act 1966. She exhorted ‘legal eagles’ to initiate court proceedings the Union Minister and the Central Government for violating the Punjab Reorganization Act and conspiring against Punjab on the issue of taking away its legal rights over Chandigarh, as Punjab’s authority over UT had already been officially recognized in the Rajiv Longowal Agreement and recommendations of various commissions.
Bibi Raju lamented that implementation of central rules on employees in UT without taking Punjab into confidence is an unilateral, authoritarian and coercive decision as Chandigarh is an integral part of Punjab. She alleged that BJP has betrayed the Punjabis who had sacrificed a lot for the country, adding she feared that the decision would further reduce representation of Punjabis in new recruitments in Chandigarh and further marginalize the mother tongue Punjabi in the UT.
Farmer leader Bibi Raju said for decades the Punjab government and the Punjab Assembly had unanimously passed resolutions demanding from the Center that Chandigarh as the capital of state should be handed over to Punjab immediately, but instead of meeting this demand the Modi government, to avenge the farmers’ agitation, was doing injustice to Punjab on the pretext of destroying the federal structure under the ‘Ek Bharat, Great India’ programme.
The woman leader added that the Punjabis have shown the mirror of the future by defeating the BJP politically in the assembly elections and now Punjabis would teach the saffron party a lesson in the 2024 parliamentary elections with ‘vote woes’.
She demanded from the Modi government to reverse all anti-Punjab decisions immediately and asked all the MPs of Punjab to raise their voice in both houses of the Parliament against the continuing repression on Punjab. Bibi Raju asked that the Punjab government to announce a concrete program against the dictatorship of BJP over the federal structure.
