Jittery BSP announces 6 Lok Sabha candidates
Wednesday, 23/10/2013
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131023/punjab.htm#1
Chandigarh : In wake of efforts by the SAD and the Congress to lure the Scheduled Caste population of the state, the Punjab unit of the BSP has announced six candidates to make its presence felt.
The candidates are Bhagwan Singh Chauhan from Hoshiarpur, Pardeep Singh Walia from Amritsar, Succha Singh from Khadoor Sahib, Ram Kumar Prajapati from Ferozepur, Bhupesh Sharma from Bathinda and Ram Singh Dhiman from Patiala. These candidates represent the Ravidasia, Khatri Arora and Majbi Sikh communities.
Parkash Bharti, in charge of the party’s state unit, said: “Any decision on an alliance will be taken by party chief Mayawati. Neither the Congress nor the SAD has bothered about issues concerning Dalits. They are not even bothered about the upper caste poor”.
Parkash Singh Jandali, BSP state president, said: “The foundation stone of the Valmiki temple in Amritsar was laid four times earlier, but nothing happened on ground. Voters cannot be misled because of the announcement ahead of the elections”.
Ravinder Hans, BSP state general secretary, said: “The government has not announced any clear action plan for building the temple. Even the foundation stone was not laid in the sarowar as was required.”
Harcharan Bains, media adviser to the Chief Minister, said: “The BSP has woken up after a huge public response to the temple function. The government has been working on the project since long. There have been 18 meetings of which 17 were chaired by the Chief Minister”.
Sukhpal Khaira, PPCC spokesperson, said: “The Congress wants an alliance with the BSP. But, the party is run on the whims and fancies of its president Mayawati. A call will be taken by our alliance committee. I can only say that the figure of 70 per cent for SC/BC population in the state is highly bloated. The Congress is equally concerned about farmers and farm labourers”.
