Phagwara, January 14, 2022 (Yes Punjab News)
Senior SC leader of Congress party in state and former Minister Punjab Joginder Singh Mann today resigned from the party and as Chairman of Punjab Agro Industries Corporation (Cabinet Rank), thereby snapping his 50 years old ties with Congress.
In an emotive letter to Mrs Sonia Gandhi, the three MLA from Phagwara, who was minister in Cabinets of Beant Singh, HS Brar, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Captain Amarinder Singh, said that, “I had a dream that when I will die the Congress tri-colour will be wrapped around my body but with Congress patronizing guilty of post matric scholarship scheme my conscience doesn’t allow me to stay here”.
He said that The Maharajas, landlords, moneybags and opportunist leaders like Captain Amarinder Singh, Navjot Singh Sidhu and others came in party for sake of vested political interests due to which the party drifted from its core values and focus shifted merely to contest the polls and grab power.
He further said that from last few months He is having sleepless nights because the millions of SC students whose career has been ruined due to the usurping of money haunted me that why are you sitting with your hands on lap and allowing this atrocious moves of the party as instead Of punishing the guilty Congress has been sheltering them and recent decision of Cabinet was a pointer towards it.
“It is not the same party who’s leader late Mrs Indira Gandhi ride atop on an elephant, as no other vehicle was available in bad weather, to mourn death of members of SC community who were killed in Belchi (Bihar) but today leaders of Congress leaders are drenched with blood of SC students whose career have been ruined due to post matric scholarship scam” he added.
Citing another reason he said residents of Phagwara have to travel around 40 kilometers to Kapurthala for getting their administrative works done at District headquarters, so he had been repeatedly flagging off the issue of according District status to Phagwara from day one before the then CM Captain Amarinder Singh and now before Mr Charanjit Singh Channi.
But instead of paying any heed towards it they have blatantly ignored this long pending demand of Phagwara residents thereby humiliating their sentiments and aspirations. He said that if the party and its leaders are now not interested in fulfilling their demand there is no logic for me to remain clinging to it and seeing people of Phagwara wasting their time, money and energy to travel all the way to Kapurthala for getting their menial administrative works done.
Mann also pointed out that in the last few years the party has been giving step motherly treatment to the Valmiki/ Mazhbi Sikh community and the party has always used the community merely as a vote bank without even bothering to ensure its well being and give due representation to it. He said that Captain Amarinder Singh led Congress government was probably the first one in the history of Punjab in which no Valmiki/ Mazhbi Sikh Minister was there despite the fact that a berth remained vacant, after Sidhu’s resignation, for more than two years. But instead of giving it to the community the party inflicted a huge insult to millions of brethren of the community. He also said that the last Rajya Sabha member of Congress from the community in Punjab was in the 1990s and the last Lok Sabha ticket given to any candidate of the community was in 2004.
He said that these reasons coupled with the dominance of Maharajas, landlords, moneybags, opportunists and others have now forced him to leave the party which he had served with sweat, toil and blood during last 50 years during which he lost his eight family members during terrorism. “I had remained a loyal soldier of party for five decades but apparently now the party don’t need us that is why our loyalty is considered as our weakness but it is not so as we are strong enough to safeguard the interests of residents of Phagwara in general and that of weaker and underprivileged sections in particular even without Congress too” he added.
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