Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday urged the first Dalit Chief Minister of Punjab Charanjit Singh Channi to register a criminal case against former Social Welfare minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot to safeguard the future of students belonging to Scheduled Castes.
While taking a jibe at Channi, the SAD also called him a 'compromised CM' who must correct all the wrongs committed against them (two lakh SC students).
Taking to Twitter, the SAD posted a series of tweets and said, "The CM has never spoken in favour of victimized Dalit students. Crimes committed by Dharamsot against them are listed in the report submitted by the former additional PS. He has also accused him of embezzling funds worth Rs 65 crore and benefiting several private institutes."
The party also claimed that the state is not releasing its part of the scheme share to Dalit students, and said, "The central funds sent have been misappropriated in the past too. We demand that the new CM immediately release Rs 1,800 crores owed to students under the scholarship scheme for the last three years."
During the tenure of Captain Amarinder Singh too, the SAD had urged the then CM to sack Dharamsot for his alleged involvement in the scandal of usurping SC Scholarship money of lakhs of students.
SAD President Gulzar Singh Ranike had also alleged that the Additional Chief Secretary of Dharamsot's department had indicted him for Rs 64 crore fraud of SC Scholarship money and that the department had not released scholarship money to the tune of Rs 3000 crore announced in budgets of the previous years.
Meanwhile, Captain Amarinder Singh had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June during his tenure seeking the release of the state's "pending amount" and revised sharing pattern under the Post Matric Scholarship for Scheduled Castes (PMS-SCs) for the period 2017-2020.
According to an official release in June, Rs.1,563 crore for 2017-20 was still pending with the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for release as central share under the scheme and that no response had yet been received to those letters.
( With inputs from ANI )
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