Manjinder Singh Sirsa
Chandigarh, December 10, 2016: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal had the audacity to announce at Adampur today that a “dalit leader’ would be anointed on the chair of deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal three months later forgetting that he had not even a single ”dalit leader” as minister in his cabinet.
Stating this here today, Manjinder Singh Sirsa, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) spokesman and advisor to deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal, said Kejriwal’s said this exposes the duplicity of the AAP leadership. At least, Kejriwal could have at least appointed a ‘Dalit’ as cabinet colleague. Kejriwal is selling dreams while he is sure that the party would be totally routed in the state given the opposition the party is facing from its rank and file as most of the credulous faces including golden hockey girl Rajbir Kaur have deserted the party.
Instead of promising Punjabis Dalit of deputy chief minister’s coveted post, Kejriwal should first appoint one of the dalits legislators from his party as deputy chief minister after removing Manish Sisodia to compensate for ignoring the community for long and then make such promises to people of Punjab.
Sirsa said that he is dangling the carrot of the coveted slot in the government just to garner their support in the ensuing assembly polls early next year. Kejriwal has been informed by his cohorts in the party that Punjab has maximum number of dalits and Doaba region comprising Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Hoshiarpur their number exceeds 40 percent. Not surprising that Kejriwal made this announcement while addressing a rally in Adampur, which is in the centre of Doaba.
The Akali leader as confident that Punjab dalits can’t be lured by lollypops of Kejriwal while the SAD government under able leadership of S. Parkash Singh Badal had taken unprecedented steps for the alleviation of the community since 1997 which included offering of “Shaguns to Dalit girls”, building of special ‘dharmshalas” , free power supply up to 200 units. This was precisely the reason that most of the reserved seats returned Akali nominees in the last two elections, he added arguing that this time the party has fielded a dalit from general constituency Kapurthala and the party is determined to ensure his success.
Sirsa said Kejriwal is no wisher of the community. If he were so, he should list what he had done for the community in Delhi during the last two years of his tenure as chief minister. He even failed to ensure timely wages for the sweeper in Delhi who are predominantly from the Dalit community.