Putting all the speculations that the BJP is manoeuvring to polarize the SC community vote bank to its favour, to rest Sohan Singh Thandal, Senior Vice President of the SC wing of SAD today said that the media hype created in this regard is baseless and without any substance.In a press communiqué released here today Thandal also made a startling revelation the high end advisory has been issued for the bureaucracy of the state to act promptly for the implementation of constitutional provisions made for the welfare of the Scheduled Casts. Bureaucracy has also been instructed to exercise utmost care while passing orders on the subjects pertaining to SCs and to refrain from issuing orders on such subjects on its own without prior approval of the Government.
He said that the letter issued by the Personnel Department on October 10 regarding denial of roaster point in seniority has created anguish among the employees belonging to SC category which could have been avoided. He disclosed that this matter has been discussed at party forum at length and all the SC elected representatives of the SAD under the chairmanship of Speaker Punjab Vidhan Sabha would meet Chief Minister, S. Parkash Singh Badal for the cancellation of this letter issued on October 10. He said Chief Minister would also be urged to implement the 85th constitutional amendment in the state.
Sohan Singh Thandal said that Shiromani Akali Dal has always been acting as the custodian of the legal and constitutional rights of the people belonging to Scheduled Castes. He said that SAD-BJP government ruling combine during its 7 years regime has rolled out many schemes for the welfare of the SC community. In this context he made special mention of the Shagun Scheme, Pre Matric and Post Matric Scholarship Scheme, Aata Dal Scheme and other such schemes which were started to improve the financial as well as social conditions of the downtrodden communities. Mr. Thandal said that it is only the SAD which has been working relentlessly to bring the downtrodden communities to the mainstream whereas most of other political parties have considered them mere vote bank. He castigated the Congress for playing communal card for the polarization votes.