Punjab News: BJP Protests Its Leaders’ Detention, Harassment By Govt For Holding Outreach Camps

Chandigarh: Even as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab continued the crackdown on the BJP leaders across the state, the BJP leaders on Thursday held protests at several places against the same and also submitted a memorandum to governor Gulab Chand Kataria here seeking his intervention.

The AAP government, however, claimed that the said outreach programmes were being used by BJP to illegally collect personal data of the people, while the saffron party leaders held that the party workers disseminated awareness about Central government welfare schemes at the camps.

State BJP working president Ashwani Sharma said in the party memorandum that the Punjab police and the local administration disrupted awareness camps organised by the party volunteers to inform people about various Central schemes such as farmers’ welfare programmes, old-age pension and Ayushman health cards aimed at the poor and other weaker sections of the society.

Meanwhile, reports from different districts said that the BJP leaders were detained and their camps halted in Jalandhar, Bathinda, Mansa, Ludhiana and Muktsar, while the state government claimed that the BJP workers were illegally collecting personal data of local residents under the pretext of their outreach campaign.

JAKHAR DARES CM MANN

Meanwhile, the BJP state president, Sunil Jakhar challenged chief minister Bhagwant Mann, stating that the BJP will once again set up a camp on August 22 at the same spot in Raipur village in Fazilka district, from where the Mann government's police arrested the party's leaders.

Stating that he would also personally attend this camp, Jakhar said that this attack was not on the BJP workers, but on the poor people of Punjab who were being given the benefits of Central government schemes through these camps. He said that Mann's government is not doing anything for the poor and is obstructing people from receiving the benefits of central government schemes.

He said that the government cannot stop the BJP by engaging in such anti-democratic activities.