Channi too has questions: ‘Where is Dalit dy CM, why did you not attend Kabir Jayanti event'
Congress MP Charanjit Singh Channi Thursday accused AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of being 'anti-Dalit', saying they did not attend Kabir Jayanti event in Jalandhar.
'Kejriwal is anti-Dalit. He has refused to install a Dalit deputy Chief Minister in Punjab, a promise that he had made ahead of the 2022 Assembly elections. Not only this, Kejriwal and Mann did not even participate in the programme organized in the memory of Dalit Gurus. An example of this is their absence in the Kabir Jayanti programme in Jalandhar on Wednesday,' said Channi.
The Congress MP was addressing a press conference in Ludhiana.
Channi said that both Kejriwal and Mann on Wednesday returned after inaugurating a park in Jalandhar, which was at distance of just 3 km from the venue of Kabir Jayanti programme.
'Why they could not travel just 3 kms to attend the programme while they had all the time to inaugurate a park,' he asked.
Channi said that Kabir Bhawan in Jalandhar was constructed during the Congress regime at a cost of Rs 12 crore.
'The proof of the AAP government being anti-Dalit is that it did not even pay attention to the cleaning of the Sarovar at Bhagwan Valmiki Teerth in Amritsar even as the Congress government had provided the machinery for the same worth crores,' said Channi.
He said that the AAP government 'takes political advantage by putting Baba Sahib's (BR Ambedkar's) photos', whereas it has 'not laid a single brick in three years for the research centre project on Ambedkar's life which was approved for Rs 100 crore at Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala.'
'The project was approved during my tenure as chief minister but has not witnessed any progress since AAP came,' he said.
'This is not all. When I was the Chief Minister in the then Congress government, we had presented a cheque of Rs 25 crore to the Dera Sachkhand Ballan management for a research centre on Guru Ravidass. During the Lok Sabha polls, Kejriwal and company again reached the Dera to present the same cheque. But the amount of Rs 25 crore has not been released to Dera Ballan till date,' said Channi.
'After the order of the High Court, this anti-Dalit and anti-poor government, out of compulsion, issued a notification on the Right to Education Act, but did not make any efforts to implement it. No poor child got admission in a private school as mandated under the Act. Before the assembly elections, votes were collected by filling forms promising to give Rs 1000 per month to women but even after 40 months, women have not received a single rupee. The women of Punjab ask their mothers daily when Kejriwal uncle from Delhi will put money in their accounts,' said Channi.
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