Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Tuesday described the Congress party’s decision to make incumbent chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi its CM face for upcoming Assembly polls in Punjab as a desperate attempt to revive its sinking fortunes in the State.

The BSP supremo, who addressed a large gathering in Nawansheher along with alliance partner  Shiromani Akali Dal’s (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal, said “The Congress party only remembers Dalits at the time of elections. Once the elections are over they will sideline Channi who is even now being remote-controlled from Delhi”.

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Mayawati also asked Channi to understand why he had been promoted in the party, saying the Congress party had a past history of using the Dalit community during elections. The BSP president while expressing confidence that the SAD-BSP alliance would sweep the polls said “We all have to work unitedly to install Sukhbir Badal as the next chief minister of the state”.
Mayawati said while the Congress party was dying a natural death across the country and its days were numbered in Punjab, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was also on its way out.  “People realize the BJP has a corporate mindset and will make it meet the same fate as the Congress party,” she said.

Speaking about Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Mayawati said people should see the conditions in Delhi for themselves before thinking of reposing 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. The state of hospitals was there for all to see. Even the claims of cheap power are false and have been thoroughly exposed,” she added.

Speaking on the occasion, SAD chief 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 done nothing and wasted five years by scrapping or curtailing all social welfare benefits given to Punjabis by Parkash Singh Badal be it scrapping blue cards or curtailing old age pension and shagun scheme.

He said similarly Punjabis could not trust AAP which had an anti-Punjab agenda.  “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,” Badal said.