Haryana model of good governance awaits Punjab if BJP comes to power: CM Saini

Exuding confidence that the BJP will come to power in Punjab next year, Saini said the deprived sections would be provided all facilities, including plots of land, houses, education, scholarships and healthcare, on the lines of Haryana.

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini on Wednesday said that Punjab will get a taste of the Haryana model of ''good governance'' if the BJP comes to power in the neighbouring state, where elections are due next year. Exuding confidence that the BJP will come to power in Punjab next year, Saini said the deprived sections would be provided all facilities, including plots of land, houses, education, scholarships and healthcare, on the lines of Haryana. Saini was addressing a delegation of the Dhanak community from various districts of Punjab at his residence here on Wednesday evening. On the request of the delegation, Saini accepted an invitation to attend a function to be organised by the community in Punjab on June 30 to mark Sant Kabir's birth anniversary, an official statement said. Satish Khundia, president of the Dhanak community in Punjab, apprised Saini about the issues faced by the community members and claimed that educated youth were not getting employment. Khundia claimed that while 34 out of 117 Assembly seats and 4 out of 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab were associated with the Deprived Scheduled Castes, their participation in politics remained negligible. Deprived Scheduled Castes (DSC) are a sub-category of Scheduled Castes in certain states, intended to provide prioritised reservations to the most underprivileged groups within the SC category. Khundia claimed that while the DSC community members have made significant progress in Haryana, their condition in Punjab remained poor. Saini said he understood the pain of the community, as neither the Congress nor the ruling AAP focused on Punjab's real development. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was nothing more than a comedian, while Arvind Kejriwal's record in Delhi and Punjab was also well known, the statement quoted Saini as saying. Saini also claimed that the AAP formed the government in Punjab on the back of false promises, but its reality was now before the people. Drawing a comparison, he claimed that Haryana faced similar conditions more than a decade ago, but the BJP government improved the situation with strong resolve after assuming office in 2014. Soon after coming to power, the government recruited 5,500 personnel in the police department, including 605 from the DSC community, he said. Saini also said that the previous Congress government in Haryana had announced 100 square yard plots, but neither did it provide documents nor possession. ''The BJP government ensured that the beneficiaries received both ownership papers and possession,'' he claimed. In addition, 16,500 families were separately allotted 100 square yard plots, which were then linked to the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, he said. In the past 10 years, 27.5 lakh people in Haryana received free treatment under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, for which the state government paid Rs 4,000 crore to hospitals, Saini claimed. He also claimed that children from deprived sections were being provided free education and scholarships in Haryana, while girls were being given free education up to the postgraduate level, along with free bus travel. In contrast, the Punjab government neither succeeded in controlling drug abuse nor did it provide employment to the youth of the state, he alleged. ''A change in Punjab can only be brought by its people, and the next year's elections present a golden opportunity,'' Saini said.