Delhi Congress President Devender Yadav on Saturday slammed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after its national convener Arvind Kejriwal announced Dr Ambedkar scholarship for the higher education of Dalit students, calling it a “gimmick” to woo the voters ahead of the forthcoming Assembly polls.

Reacting to this, he said that with the Delhi Assembly elections closing in, Kejriwal was getting desperate to influence the voters with various freebies. His latest promise to realise the dream of Dalit children to get “foreign education” through the Dr Ambedkar scholarship scheme ahead of polls was one such gimmick, he remarked.

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Attacking the former Delhi CM, the Delhi Congress chief said, “Kejriwal’s latest promise to realize the dream of the Dalit children to get foreign education is yet another misleading election stunt. He remembers the poor and the backwards only during election time, otherwise, he does not even acknowledge their existence in miserable living conditions in various slum clusters of the capital, without even basic civic facilities.”

Kejriwal, who came to power invoking the name of Dalits and contested the elections on the “jaadu” symbol, has totally neglected the Dalits after getting their votes to come to power, he alleged.

He claimed that Kejriwal’s “anti-Dalit” attitude was exposed as early as 2014 when the AAP government reduced the number of state scholarships for SC/ST/OBC students by more than 75,000.

“Kejriwal had announced a number of freebies like Ladli Behna, free electricity and water, farm loan waivers, free ration, Delhi Mahila Samman Yojna, laptops etc, but none of these promises were fulfilled. They seemed to have made any impact with the voters of Delhi, who now look at Kejriwal with suspicion and distrust considering his long track record of corruption and unfulfilled promises,” he said.

Yadav further asserted that Kejriwal should first improve the standard of government schools and education, as the frequent closure of schools due to severe air pollution, and the implementation of online classes, have impacted children from poor families, particularly the Dalit community.