In bid to woo Dalit voters of Punjab, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi stayed at Dera Ballan, the largest religious place of Ravidassia community, on the intervening night of January 25 and 26. Later while addressing a gathering in support of Congress candidate B S Dhaliwal in Phagwara Assembly segment on Wednesday, the CM said that “where baba ji (head of Dera Ballan Sant Niranjan Das) slept, I also slept in the same room on the floor and It was an amazing feeling as Baba ji recited religious discourse till late in the night”. Channi further added that he received calls from the officials who told him that he could not stay there as he had to unfurl the flag on Wednesday, but he (Channi) told them that he had come to meet his Guru Ji and if anyone wanted to register a case against him then let it be. Ravidassia community has a 61% population among the entire Dalit community in Doaba region - Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Kapurthala districts - of the state. During his address to the crowd in Phagwara, Channi said that AAP was asking people of the state to give them a chance as they had tried Congress and Akalis, “but we have got only 111 days to perform and I want people to see us properly by giving full time to us and then see our performance”. “During these 111 days, I worked day and night and officers were working with me in three shifts,” added Channi. Taking a dig on the drinking habits of AAP’ CM face Bhagwant Mann, former Punjab CM captain Amarinder Singh, he said that “Captain’s (Captain Amarinder Singh) shop shuts at 4 pm and then abhi to party shuru hui hai (now the party begins) starts. And then after two hours, Bhagwant Mann’s party gets started, said Channi. He said AAP’s own MP had written to Lok Sabha Speaker to change his seat, which was adjoining to Mann’s seat, in Parliament because of the drinking problem of Mann. “I meet people till midnight or even at 2 am, how will you locate them (Mann and Captain after evening and if by chance you are able to locate them you will see a scene which you cannot even imagine,” quipped Channi. About Phagwara, he said it had not been made a district despite being quite far from its district headquarters in Kapurthala. “If we get this opportunity, we will make it a district. People have been demanding to make Phagwara a district since long,” he said. Targeting the BSP, he said that they claim that they represent 35% Dalit population of the state then why they got just 18% tickets under seat sharing arrangement with SAD and not 35%. “They only got 20 out of 117 seats and on 20 seats also there are only 7 candidates of BSP’s and 13 are former SAD leaders. They sold BSP to SAD and there is no existence of BSP in the state,” said Channi. Earlier during his Republic Day speech, he called Doaba the heartland of martyrs and said that this region was the epicentre of the Ghadar and Babbar movements which spearheaded the freedom struggle. He also recalled the exceptional contribution made by Dr B R Ambedkar in drafting the Constitution. The Chief Minister also honoured the 135 people from different walks of life.
