Chandigarh, August 20
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab has termed the Congress government of the state as the biggest enemy of Dalits-poor. In a joint statement issued from the party headquarters here on Friday, senior leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema and MLA Principal Budh Ram said why the Captain Amarinder Singh-led government, who was now showing false dreams for the welfare of Dalits ahead of the elections; did not paid heed to the Dalit community for four-and-a-half years.
Harpal Singh Cheema alleged that the ruling Congress not only reneged on its promises to the poor and the Dalit community; but also ridiculed the poverty of the Dalits, the biggest example of which was the cut off 2.5 lakh Atta-Dal ration cards and non-receipt of post-matric scholarship scheme, due to which nearly two lakh students had to drop out of school. He said the Congress government had failed to deliver on its promises like 5 Marla plots, Rs 2,500 per month pension, Rs 51,000 Shagun scheme, complete debt waiver, Ghar-Ghar Rozgar and unemployment benefits, which had hit the Dalits and the poor hard.
Cheema said the Dalit students had not received the benefit of the scholarship scheme in four years. He said that Rs 315 crore released in the end under this scheme was also a direct scam of crores of rupees, but instead of taking action against the corrupt ministers and officials, the Congress issued clean chits to them. Harpal Singh Cheema said similarly the capping limit of ration schemes for the poor and Dalits was a dictatorial decision, which proved fatal for the poor and Dalits during the Covid period. “As a result of this arbitrary and politically factional decision, lakhs of needy and deserving Dalit families were deprived of the benefit of the ration scheme,” said Cheema.
Principal Budh Ram said by scrapping the SC component plan in the Scheduled Caste (SC) Corporation, the Congress government had excluded Dalit entrepreneurs from the business sector. He said the Congress government which was bent on abolishing the government jobs had rejected the reservation policy for the SCs. “As a result, the backlog of SC quota in government departments has crossed 30,000. The reservation policy does not apply to contract or temporary jobs such as outsourcing or guest faculty,” he added.
The AAP leaders said the Congress had shown anti-Dalit thinking by not providing scholarships to Dalit students studying in government schools from Class I to VIII under pre-matric scholarships and state educational welfare scheme. “Like the Badals and the BJP, the Congress does not want the children of the Dalits-poor to be able to wash away poverty by reading and writing,” they added.
The leaders said the non-issuance of a single rupee for the repair or construction of Dharamsalas for Dait community in four-and-a-half-years was another example of discrimination by the Captain government against the Dalits. They said the government, which had ignored the entire Dalit community for four-and-a-half-years, would have to account for its breach of promise in 2022.
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