Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday expressed shock that Dalit ministers, who were ever vocal about dalit issues during the SAD-BJP tenure when the most was done for the disadvantaged, were turning a blind eye to the implementation of Right to Education (RTE) Act in Punjab which assured free and compulsory education in private unaided schools to dalits and below poverty line (BPl) families.
“The reprimand by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes in this context is proof of the anti-dalit attitude of the Congress Government,” said the former Minister Gulzar Singh Ranike.
He said: “It is condemnable that dalit ministers like Charanjit Singh Channi and Sadhu Singh Dharamsot never spoke out about the need to implement the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act which assures 25 per cent quota for disadvantaged children in private unaided schools for which the fee is reimbursed to schools by the State.”
Asking both Channi and Dharamsot to explain to the SC as well as BPl families why they had been denied this facility by the Congress Government, Ranike said: “It seems both ministers are only interested in clinging to their chairs by hook or by crook and are not interested in the welfare of the dalit community at all. There can be no other answer as to why not a single child was admitted to any private school in Punjab under this scheme.”
Ranike said that earlier Technical Education Minister Charanjit Channi had abysmally failed to ensure dalit students received their scholarship which was also part of a central scheme. Social Welfare Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot had failed to ensure distribution of old age pension and shagun scheme, he added.
Ranike, who also heads SAD’s SC wing, said that the wing would soon start a movement for the recall of both Channi and Dharamsot. “Both these ministers have lost the right to represent dalits in the State cabinet”, he added.
He also demanded immediate implementation of the RTE Act in Punjab from the forthcoming session saying hat the SAD would raise this issue in the forthcoming budget session in the Vidhan Sabha and force the government to implement the RTE Act in Punjab.