Chandigarh-Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday held a roadshow in support of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Rishi Raj from Assam's Sonitpur Lok Sabha constituency. He appealed to the people of Assam to press the button of 'jharoo' (broom) to bring change.
During the road show, Mann said that he is very happy to get a chance to visit the land of Vishwanath. Today you are celebrating the festival of Bihu and we are celebrating Baisakhi and Khalsa Foundation Day. The cultures of Assam and Punjab are very similar.
He said that both the states have agriculture based economies. People here cultivate tea. On the other hand, people of Punjab cultivate wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton. We all are children of Mother Earth. But unfortunately today the children of Mother Earth are dying of hunger because the present government is working for the capitalists instead of the farmers.
He said that the condition of the workers working in the tea gardens in Assam is very poor. Today the workers here get a daily wage of Rs 250. Give us a chance, we will increase the daily wage of those workers to Rs 450 and will make a law for this. After the formation of our government in Punjab, we have also increased the daily wages there.
During the speech, Mann launched a scathing attack on the BJP government of Assam and the Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma about the poor condition of government schools. He said that Chief Minister Sharma's wife owns several private schools. That is why government schools are not being improved and developed.
Mann said that if he wanted, schools and hospitals could have been upgraded to provide better facilities to the common people 20 years ago because Himanta Biswa was the Education and Health Minister in the Congress government. But his intentions were corrupt. That is why government schools and hospitals are still in such a state. When the Chief Minister has his own private schools, why will he improve government schools?
He said that 8000 government schools in Assam have been closed due to lack of students. Before the AAP governments the government schools of Delhi and Punjab were in a sad state too. But instead of closing the schools, we made them so good that today parents in Delhi and Punjab are taking their children out of private schools and sending them to government schools.
Apart from this, we have also done a lot of work in the fields of power (electricity), health and employment. Electricity is free in Punjab. Now 90% of the households of Punjab get zero electricity bills. Aam Aadmi Clinics are functioning in Punjab, where all kinds of treatment is free. At the same time, we have given government jobs to about 43000 youth in the last two years. If we get a chance in Assam, we will do all this work here too.
On the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal, Mann said that the BJP think that by putting Arvind Kejriwal in jail, they will finish the Aam Aadmi Party. But they are highly mistaken. He said that you can arrest Arvind Kejriwal but how will you arrest his thinking. Arvind Kejriwal is not just a person, he is an idea. Therefore, press the first button on the EVM and take forward the thinking of Arvind Kejriwal ji.