The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday termed the youth manifesto released by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a “cut and paste replica of the undelivered Delhi agenda”. The party asked AAP how it would provide 25 lakh jobs to youth in Punjab which had entire Government employee strength of five lakh persons.
At the same time, the SAD welcomed AAP’s decision to conduct random drug tests on all its prospective candidates.
“This is sure to put AAP MP and party Election Campaign Committee in-charge Bhagwant Mann out of contention…It is best you appoint a new Campaign Committee in-charge immediately as Mann must have turned despondent after reading this bit of news,” said SAD secretary and spokesperson Daljit Singh Cheema.
Cheema, speaking about AAP’s promise to provide 25 lakh jobs in Punjab, asked AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal to come clean and disclose if he had provided eight lakh jobs to Delhi youth as promised in his election manifesto.
“According to information collated by us, only a few hundred youth have got employment during the current AAP regime,” he said while reminding Kejriwal that 2.50 lakh youth were set to get government jobs during SAD-BJP rule in Punjab.
SAD leader also chided Kejriwal and requested him not to speak out of the hat. “You are talking about introducing a Jan lokpal Bill in Punjab when you have not done this in Delhi despite the fact that you fought your entire election on this plank.
Cheema, also Punjab Education Minister, said that Kejriwal had failed to fulfil his promise to give free wi-fi facility in Delhi despite claiming that this was an easy job. “Your engineering degree, which you acquired without giving any test, has failed you in this regard. How will you now implement this scheme in PunjabIJ” he asked.
SAD leader also requested the AAP convener to read the newspapers instead of only his advertisements for which he was wasting a mammoth Rs 550 crore collected from the people of Delhi.
“If you had ever done this you would realise that most of the things promised by you have already been fulfilled by the SAD-BJP alliance,” said Cheema while citing examples of 13 new Universities, 30 new Colleges “whereas Delhi was yet to get the 20 new Colleges promised by Kejriwal in his party election manifesto”.
Cheema said as far as sports infrastructure was concerned, Kejriwal was talking about an Olympic Mission little realizing that this had been initiated with the establishment of Punjab Institute of Sports along with 11 sports directorates. Besides, six hockey stadiums and 10 multipurpose stadiums had also been established in Punjab.
He asked Kejriwal to first deliver on his promises and then come seeking votes in Punjab.