Aam Aadmi Party, which is eyeing to wrest power in Punjab in 2017 Assembly polls, proposed to come out with a separate manifesto for the Scheduled Caste (SC), saying the community have been “treated” as a vote bank while their demands have been ignored repeatedly.
“Since the inception of elections in Punjab, a state which has largest population of Scheduled Castes in India, the community has been treated as a vote bank and their development and needs have been ignored repeatedly, election after election, and their demands ignored time and again,” a party spokesman said here today.
AAP has suggested a new outlay of procedure to work on the demands of the Scheduled Caste community, he added.
“The new manifesto will be for the SC community, which has been ignored, and work for their development and benefit,” he said.
The manifesto will be prepared after discussions and dialogues with the community members in the state, starting from Nabha in Patiala and will have their views and demands, he said.
Earlier, the much publicised ‘Youth manifesto’, released by AAP supremo and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in Amritsar, had courted controversy over the issue of superimposing the party symbol “broom” on the front page of the manifesto alongside the picture of Sri Harmandar Sahib.
Also, AAP leader Ashish Khetan equating the manifesto to the Guru Granth Sahib created a furore that refuses to die down, causing immense discomfort and damage to the party.
AAP now finds itself embroiled in religious and political controversies.
The party is also facing trouble following the arrest of its Delhi MLA Naresh Yadav in connection with a scarilage incident in Malerkolta town.
From Agencies, Feature image courtesy www.rediff.com
