Protesting for the rights of the Dalits students of the state, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs on the fifth day of the budget session on Friday, held a foot march from MLA hostel to the Punjab Vidhan Sabha. Showing resentment over the issue, AAP's senior leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) Harpal Singh Cheema along with AAP MLAs Sarvjeet Kaur Manuke, Kultar Singh Sandhwan, Prof Baljinder Kaur, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, Rupinder Kaur Ruby, Principal Budh Ram, Jagtar Singh Hissowal, Kulwant Pandori, Jai Kishan Rodi, Amarjeet Singh Sandoa, Manjit Singh Bilaspur, Master Baldev Singh Jaito and other leaders raised slogans against the Captain Amarinder Singh government.Addressing the media on the occasion, Harpal Singh Cheema said that the Dalit students of Punjab had always been on the receiving end. He said that during the SAD rule, crores of rupees were siphoned off. "The same is now done by the Captain-led Congress government in the state. It was very shameful that the money meant for the poor Dalit students were stolen by these corrupt cronies," he added.
Cheema further said that as per the reply given to an RTI application filed, the Central government had released Rs 1,423 crores to the state government for the post-matric scholarship but the state government was yet to pay Rs 1,853 crores to the colleges."Moreover, Captain Amarinder lied to the people of Punjab by saying that the Central government had stopped the post-matric scholarship for the state government but the same reply to the RTI application states that no such thing has been done by the Central government," he said. Taking a dig at Captain Amarinder and his ministers, Cheema said that on top of all this, Captain's very own minister siphoned of crores of rupees meant for the education of poor Dalit students.The AAP leader said that the very community that brought Captain Amarinder Singh to power was now working proactively in suppressing them. He said that these people were nothing but backstabbers. "Captain Amarinder has no shame in siphoning off the money meant for the poor. They have no shame in keeping the poor suppressed. Captain Amarinder you must be ashamed," said Cheema. He stated that the colleges were on a verge of shutting down and students were sitting unemployed because of not getting their degrees, but Captain has no care for the Dalit students.