Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Punjab unit on Tuesday held the Capt Amarinder Singh led Punjab Government and the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre responsible for not releasing a whopping amount of Rs 1,800 crore as dues on account of pending post-matric scholarships to the students belonging to the poor, dalits and minority communities for more than four years now, which reflected their anti-poor and anti-dalit face.
The party MLAs, including state core committee chairman Principal Budh Ram, Deputy Leader of Opposition Sarabjit Kaur Manuke, accused the Congress Government in the State of following the footprints of the previous Badal Government for not releasing the dues for the years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 only to depriving them of their right to education.
Principal Budh Ram and Manuke said that the post-matric scholarship schemes were made so complicated by both the State and Central Governments just to keep the disbursement of the pending Rs 1,800 crore dues to the beneficiary students on hold, thereby denying the Dalits, the poor and ordinary children from the higher education under a deep conspiracy.
Party’s state SC wing president Manjit Singh Bilaspur and vice-president Kulwant Singh Pandori said that the ruling Congress party, the Akali Dal (Badal) and the BJP Governments, which had been changing hands to rule the country for 70 years, never wanted the poor, Dalits and children of lower strata of society obtain quality higher like their other counterparts.
AAP leaders accused the Congress, SAD-BJP alliance of using the poor and Dalits as vote banks and depriving them of the right to education due to anti-dalit and anti-poor policies of the subsequent governments.
Party MLA Rupinder Kaur Ruby said that people of the state had now become aware of their rights and duties and would not be lured by any means.
She said that millions of students belonging to the Dalits and other economically weaker sections would demand their pending dues worth 1800 crore from both the previous SAD-BJP leaders and the Congress party.
She expressed her concern over the state of the government and private colleges and universities which were facing closure due to fiscal crunch due to lopsided policies of the government.
While lauding the role of Arvind Kejriwal government in Delhi for giving equal opportunities in the field of education to every rich and poor children, AAP leaders said that the Government should take a cue from the Delhi model and help provide equal opportunities quality education to the children in Punjab by immediately releasing the outstanding scholarship amount.