Chandigarh, Aug 28, 2020 (Yes Punjab News)
Bharatiya Janata Party today claimed that Punjab Post-Matric Scholarship Scam was not as meager as it was being projected to be. The party said the Scam said to be worth Rs.63.91-crore was in fact much larger and the amount involved was not less than Rs.959-crore.
Tarun Chugh, the national secretary of the BJP, said it was highly unfortunate that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh was shielding his Cabinet colleague Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, who has been indicted by the secretary and the Addl Chief Secretary of his government.
“Capt Amarinder Singh-led Congress government has been playing with the sentiments, the aspirations and the future of the Scheduled Castes since it came into being and the Chief Minister has turned a blind eye to the irregularities in the distribution of funds and frauds committed with the SC community, the youth of which was being denied their rightful scholarships,” he said.
Warning the Chief Minister that people would not let it go, Chugh said the government was maintaining a mysterious silence even as the entire opposition was demanding action, not on the basis of some political allegations but the report of a senior IAS officer who has pointed towards glaring irregularities and pointed towards a fraud right under the nose of the minister concerned.
Chugh claimed that the report of the senior bureaucrat has indicated that the issue was not about the fraud of Rs.63.91 crore only but involved an amount of Rs. 959 crore.
The BJP leader said that Dharamsot, on 10th of January 2019, had met Union Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot in New Delhi, where he had claimed that an amount of Rs.1286 crore relating to Post-Matric Scholarships was pending but when the Union Ministry asked for account details, he could manage to give details regarding only Rs.327 crore which made it clear that the state did not have an account for an amount as large as Rs.959 crore.
Chugh said that managements of Punjab Colleges and students were continuously demanding and agitating to get the amounts of Post-Matric Scholarships but their demands and warnings were falling on deaf ears. Resultantly, SC students were under huge stress.
“It is highly unfortunate that Capt Amarinder-led Congress government which came into being after promising moon to the SC community was siding with a minister who had played with the future of the students as the probe report has indicated,” he said.
Chugh demanded that Dharamsot and others responsible for irregularities and misappropriation of Post-Matric Scholarships be dismissed and criminal action against the guilty be initiated to recover the amount that rightfully belonged to the beneficiaries of these scholarships.
The BJP leader wondered why the government was sitting on the report submitted by Addl Chief Secretary Kripa Shankar Saroj IAS to the Chief Secretary on the 21st of August. It is deplorable that no action has been taken against the minister and others even after the passage of so many days.
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