Senior Punjab Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa on Sunday accused the ruling AAP of ignoring his party's MLAs from the Gurdaspur district. Bajwa was referring to a meeting AAP minister Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal held in Gurdaspur on Saturday to review the development works there.
Bajwa claimed that all five Congress MLAs from the district were not called to the meeting. Out of seven assembly constituencies in the Gurdaspur district, five are represented by Congress.
“Aam Aadmi Party came to power in Punjab with the promise of 'badlav' (change). It showed its true colors when five out of seven MLAs in the Gurdaspur constituency belonging to the Congress Party received no information regarding a meeting convened by Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal, Minister for Rural Development, and Panchayats to oversee developmental projects in Gurdaspur District,” Bajwa said in a statement here.
By “ignoring” elected representatives and “side-lining” them, AAP's 'badlav' has ignored the will of the people in Gurdaspur, said Bajwa who is the Leader of Opposition in the Punjab Assembly. “This is in complete opposition to the beliefs of Dr. B R Ambedkar and Shaheed Bhagat Singh, whom the AAP professes to follow,” he said.
Congress MLAs from Gurdaspur earlier raised the issue of interference by the “defeated” AAP candidates in the day-to-day working of the administration. Speaking on the floor of the assembly, Aruna Chaudhary, Congress MLA from Dinanagar, alleged that AAP's Shamsher Singh has been giving directions on development projects in her constituency and has been interfering in the official meetings.
“Similarly, Jagroop Singh Sekhwan is doing the same in my constituency, Qadian. People of the Gurdaspur district are being represented by those who lost in the recent Vidhan Sabha elections,” Bajwa said. AAP's Shamsher and Jagroop had lost from Dinanagar and Qadian constituencies in the assembly polls held earlier in the year.
