‘Remote with non-dalits’: In Nawanshahr, Mayawati calls Channi a ‘dummy CM’

“The Congress party only remembers Dalits at the time of elections. Because of its casteist policies it has not conferred ‘Bharat Ratan’ to Dr B R Ambedkar…this party had not announced a single day of ‘national mourning’ on the death of BSP founder Kanshi Ram. Also this party has not implemented reservations for the backward classes and BSP got it done after a massive struggle,” she said.

The BSP chief added: “It may appoint any Dalit a CM, but that hardly matters because this party keeps the remote control in its hand and power lies with non-Dalit leaders and the same is happening in Punjab.”

She said that a Dalit CM was picked because Congress knows it is on a weak wicket in Punjab.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Singh Badal offers sweets to Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) Secretary General Satish Chandra Mishra during a joint press conference at the SAD head office in Chandigarh, Saturday, June 12, 2021. (PTI Photo)

“Congress has done it under compulsion because of its bad position to fetch Dalit votes. I feel that after the elections, if Congress is voted to power…it will sideline Channi….I am also told that Congress does not fulfil the promises made to the Dalits, sants, and weaker sections despite having a Dalit CM,” she said. Mayawati said that she will implement the UP model in Punjab to uplift the weaker sections.

The BSP chief also said that now BJP was treading the same path at the Centre and it will be wiped out like Congress. “People realise the BJP has a corporate mindset and will make it meet the same fate as the Congress party,” she added.

Speaking about Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), she said people should see the condition in Delhi for themselves before thinking of reposing their faith in AAP in Punjab. She said the AAP government had forced lakhs of people to leave Delhi during the Covid pandemic.

“It failed to look after its own citizens…Even the claims of cheap power are false and have been thoroughly exposed,” she said.

Speaking on the occasion, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal said after Mayawati’s visit to Punjab, the SAD-BSP tsunami was set to sweep the state.

He said Punjabis felt cheated by the Congress party which had wasted five years by scrapping or curtailing all social welfare benefits given to Punjabis by former CM Parkash Singh Badal.

Similarly, he added, that “Kejriwal has taken an anti-Punjab stance in the Supreme Court on key issues and even demanded transfer of Punjab’s river waters to Haryana and Delhi, closure of its thermal plants and registration of criminal cases against farmers who were forced to burn their paddy stubble”.