Chandigarh: Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema on Tuesday accused the BJP of systemic discrimination, claiming its scheduled caste (SC) figures were humiliated publicly during a high-profile political visit to the state, a charge the BJP has denied.Cheema alleged that during a tour by BJP national president, Nitin Nabin, former Union ministers Vijay Sampla and Som Parkash were forced to stand in the general audience while non-SC party officials were seated on stage.The incident, Cheema argued, exposes an elitist culture within the national ruling party that “marginalises the poor, workers, and lower-caste communities deliberately”. Scheduled castes constitute almost 34% of Punjab’s population, forming a critical voting bloc ahead of the 2027 state elections.Cheema laid his charges during a joint press conference with AAP Punjab SC wing chairman Gurpreet Singh GP. “The people of Punjab will respond firmly to this exclusionary politics,” he said.To bolster his claims, the finance minister cited 2024 data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), asserting that four BJP-administered states — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan — accounted for nearly 65% of all reported crimes against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.The Punjab FM claimed that these metrics reflected a fundamental governance failure and deep-rooted structural prejudices within the BJP’s core administrations.BJP state representatives have rejected the allegations, dismissing the press conference as a politically motivated attempt by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which hold office in Punjab, to deflect attention from its own regional governance challenges. MSID:: 131941652 413 |
