Punjab Elections 2022: Joginder Mann quits Congress
The SC face of Congress party in poll-bound Punjab and former state Minister Joginder Singh Mann resigned from the party and as Chairman of Punjab Agro Industries Corporation (Cabinet Rank) on Friday.
The senior leader snapped his 50 years old ties with the grand old party as he was reportedly miffed over inaction against perpetrators of the post-matric scholarship scheme and no district status for Phagwara.
In an emotional letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the MLA from Phagwara, who served in the Cabinets of Beant Singh, HS Brar, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Captain Amarinder Singh, stated, "I had a dream that when I die, the Congress tri-colour will be wrapped around my body, but with Congress patronising the guilty of the post-matric scholarship scheme, my conscience doesn't allow me to stay here."
He went on to say that 'the Maharajas, landlords, moneybags and opportunist leaders like Captain Amarinder Singh, Navjot Singh Sidhu and others came in the party for sake of vested political interests and due to these the party drifted from its core values and focus shifted merely to contest the polls and grab power.'
He further added that for the past few months he was having sleepless nights as the "career of millions of SC students have been ruined."
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"It is not the same party whose leader, late Mrs Indira Gandhi rode atop an elephant, as no other vehicle was available in bad weather, to mourn the death of members of the SC community who were killed in Belchi (Bihar)," he said, adding that "today's Congress leaders are drenched in the blood of SC students whose careers have been ruined as a result of the post-matric scholarship scam."
Furthermore, Mann has been demanding the district status to Phagwara for a long time. 'Residents of Phagwara have to travel around 40 kilometres to Kapurthala to get administrative work done at the District headquarters,' argued the senior Congress leader.
However, the Charanjit Channi government has blatantly ignored this long-pending demand.
Slamming the Congress, Mann said that "now the party and its leaders are not interested in people's welfare, so there is no logic for me to remain clinging to it."
Mann also stated that the party has been "neglecting the Valmiki/ Mazhbi Sikh community in recent years, and has always used the community merely as a vote bank, without bothering to ensure its well-being or give it proper representation."
He claimed that Captain Amarinder Singh's Congress government was the first in Punjab history to have no Valmiki/ Mazhbi Sikh Minister, even though a vacancy did exist for more than two years.
The disgruntled leader further explained that the last Rajya Sabha member of Congress from the community in Punjab was in the 1990s and the last Lok Sabha ticket given to any candidate of the community was in 2004.
He stated that these factors have forced him to leave the party which he has served with sweat, toil and blood for the past 50 years.
"I had been a loyal soldier of the party for five decades, but it appears that the party no longer needs us, which is why our loyalty is interpreted as a weakness. But, it is not as we are strong enough to protect the interests of the party."
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-PTC News
