Captain & Modi are responsible for spoiling careers of lakhs of ‘dalits’ others in the state

Chandigarh, January 24: The Punjab unit of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has accused the union and state governments for debarring a major chunk of the students belonging to ‘Dalit’ and other backward classes from the process of admissions in various professional courses for the academic session 2019-2020 owing to non-payment the pending scholarship amount.  These students had to seek admissions to IITs, engineering, commerce, arts and medical colleges and universities after 10 plus 2 under the Post Matric Scholarship scheme.

In a joint press statement issued from the party headquarters in Chandigarh here on Thursday, core committee chairman of the party principal Budh Ram, Dalin wing chief, Manjit Singh Bilaspur and vice-president Julwant Singh Pandori and Roopinder Kaur (All MLAs) said that the anti-Dalit stance of the saffron government at the centre led by Modi and Congress government led by captain Amarinder Singh government have spoiled the futures of the promising student belonging to these categories.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh

Budh Ram further said the centre and state governments have failed to release the pending scholarship amount worth Rs 1900 crore on account scholarship amount payable to these category of students, leaving them high and dry, he said. Out of this, a major chunk of the amount of Rs 1763 crore pertains to the SC category only. Taking a potshot at the captain government, Manjit Singh Bilaspur and Kulwant Singh Pandori said that Captain Amarinder Singh had outdone his predecessor Parkash Singh Badal, bringing his anti-Dalit face to the fore.

The state government in the saddle had played a cruel joke with the needy and the deserving beneficiaries, which, they said, had resulted in debarring 60 per cent of them out of admission race for various professional courses. They said that due to this mess up, a lesser number of students, randomly 60 per cent students have not applied for admission to these courses compared to the previous session ending 2019.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Young MLA Rupinder Ruby and others have demanded that the process of admission be simplified, with the government giving an undertaking to bear the fee. They said it was imperative that the union government should lift the 50 per pass results condition and ensure that those who could not appear in their respective exams for various courses be given another chance. The AAP leaders threatened the government that if it failed to release the scholarship within a time-frame of  amount pending for a pretty long time, they would be left with no choice but to hold state-level protest.