Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday accused the NDA Government at the Centre of deliberately keeping the State tableau out of the Republic Day parade.
In a statement issued here, the Chief Minister said that “this anti-Punjab stance of the Union Government is unwarranted and undesirable”.
According to the CM, it is a matter of great disappointment that this year, despite the presentation of ideas to the selection committee on important themes like Watan Ke Rakhwale (protectors of the country), the tableau of Punjab has not been selected for the Republic Day Parade.
Mann said that the Punjabis had made enormous sacrifices to free the motherland from its yoke of British imperialism and that despite being merely 2 percent of the country’s population, 80 per cent of the martyrs either executed or exiled during the freedom movement were Punjabis.
The CM said the State Government wanted to showcase this stellar role of Punjabis in the freedom struggle through the tableau and deplored that the Union Government had hatched a conspiracy by not allowing Punjab to showcase its achievements to the world.
The Chief Minister, further, said that this reflects the myopic mindset of the BJP led government, which is at the helms of affairs in the country.