After Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal failed to hold a ‘Janta Darbar’ for redressing the people’s grievances, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday said that he should learn the basics of this programme from him.
“Kejriwal should learn from me as I have been holding Sangat Darshans ever since the inception of my political career,” said Badal while addressing a gathering during his Sangat Darshan programme of lambi Assembly constituency. He said that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief failed because it could be successfully held by only those public representatives, who were well aware of the problems of the masses.
“There is a huge difference between Sangat Darshan and Janta Darbar as in the former, the public representatives go to the people whereas in the Darbar, the people go to the rulers,” said Badal. Taking a strong exception to the nomenclature of ‘Janta Darbar, Badal said that the Darbars were held by the Kings whereas in Democracy, ‘Sangat Darshans’ were conducted by the representatives of people for the prompt solution of public grievances.
Describing Kejriwal as the “creation of media”, Badal said that it was ironical that the media was giving huge coverage to the meager subsidies announced by the Delhi Chief Minister whereas they were not throwing any light on the Rs 6,000 crore subsidy annually given by the Punjab Government to bail out the farmers of the State.
He bemoaned that for the reasons best known to them, the media was shying away from highlighting the pro-poor welfare schemes of the state government like the Atta-Dal, Hargobind Khurana, Mai Bhago Istri Vidya and others. Badal claimed that every programme of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was more or less an emulation of the policies and programmes started by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) decades back but unfortunately they have not been given the credit for taking these pro-people initiatives.
lashing out at the Congress-led UPA Government, the Chief Minister said that this Government would go down in the annals of the Indian polity as the “most corrupt and inefficient Government”. Making a scathing attack on the Congress leaders, he said that a mad race was going on between the entire Congress leadership to score brownie points before the Nehru-Gandhi scion. “Can the Congress leaders tell me what was the ability of Rahul Gandhi except the fact that he was a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty,” questioned Badal.