[ad_1]
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Monday said will “gherao” the Punjab Assembly when the House convenes for the Budget session on March 1 “to give voice to the resentment against Capt Amarinder Singh’s sacrilegious act of breaking promises made to the people of Punjab ahead of the last Assembly elections”.
“The protest will also focus on the back-breaking hike in electricity bills, diesel, petrol and cooking gas prices as a result of excessive central and state government taxes,” SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s principal advisor Harcharan Bains said the party’s core committee here.
“The meeting also condemned the shocking insensitivity of the Congress government towards Dalit youth through its brazen denial of post-matric scholarships to them,” said Bains.
He said that the core committee met to chalk out the party’s line of action “to secure justice for the beleaguered people of Punjab who are feeling cheated by a brazenly dishonest Congress government.”
The meeting was presided over by Sukhbir.
The party described as “an outrageous assault on the religious sentiments of the Sikh masses” the Centre’s move of “blocking” their pilgrimage to Nankana Sahib in Pakistan, using the Covid-19 pandemic as an “excuse” at a time when the government itself has been
claiming success against it.
“It is clear that the present regime in Delhi is power drunk and has scant respect for the religious sentiments of people, especially of the Sikhs and other minorities in the country. All other travel activity of the government and private citizens is proceeding unaffected. But the government sees only a Sikh pilgrimage as a health hazard,” he added.
A group of pilgrims led by Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh was to travel to Pakistan from February 18 to 25 to mark the centenary of the Nankana Sahib massacre. However, the Union Home Ministry denied permission to 600 Sikh pilgrims citing the security and Coivid-19 situation in that country.
On March 1, Bains said, “the party workers will assemble at Sector 25 from where they will proceed towards the Vidhan Sabha”. The protest will “highlight the illegitimacy of the present regime which was formed by misleading the people of Punjab through a brazenly false oath taken by Captain Amaridner Singh while holding the sacred Gutka Sahib in his hand and addressing himself to the holy Takht of the Khalsa Panth, Sri Damdama Sahib”.
“Amarinder Singh had pledged compete loan waiver of all farmers, at least one government job in every family, old age pension of Rs 2,500 to every senior citizen, free mobile phones to every youth, free education to girls up to Ph.D levels,” he added.
While slamming the Congress for winning the recently held civic body polls by “unleashing violence and repression”, the SAD paid tributes to “party workers who sacrificed their lives fighting this government-sponsored goondaism”. A party resolution described “those who sacrificed their lives fighting Congress goons as martyrs to democracy”. They also paid tribute to the farmers who died during the agitation.
[ad_2]
Source link
