Hours after Charanjit Channi attacks govt, VB advances date of summons

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, April 13

Barely hours after former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi attacked the AAP government in poll-bound Jalandhar, the Vigilance Bureau issued fresh summons to him for April 14.

The VB had initially summoned him for April 12, but Channi had sought that it be delayed to April 20 or 21. The VB had then revised the orders and asked him to appear in the Mohali office on April 20.

On Thursday, after he lambasted the government on issues ranging from law and order, farming, atta-dal scheme and sand mining, the VB issued fresh summons for April 14, even as it is a government holiday on Friday on account of Baisakhi and Ambedkar Jayanti.

While the Congress leadership had already been alleging that the timing of his summons was to stop him from campaigning for the party’s candidate for the bypoll, Leader of Opposition Partap Bajwa said the party would take up the issue with the Election Commission.

Addressing the media at the residence of Congress candidate Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary, Channi had attempted to woo the dominating SC community in Jalandhar in favour of the Congress.

Accompanied by Bajwa, PCC president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and AICC Punjab in-charge Harish Chaudhary, Channi, who was the first CM from the Dalit community, said, “AAP supremo and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal announced that they would appoint a Deputy CM from the Dalit community. After 13 months of their rule have lapsed, he owes an explanation to the people of Punjab as to what stops him from appointing a Dalit Deputy Chief Minister.”

Channi’s second attack was regarding no headway on the previous Congress government’s proposal to build a panorama on the life of Bhagwan Valmiki in Amritsar for which a Rs 100-crore grant was earmarked. “My government had sanctioned Rs 25 crore to build a research centre in the name of Guru Ravidass in association with Dera Sachkhand Ballan but the government took the grant back as soon as it came to power. Since the bypoll had to be conducted, they quickly came to return this grant,” he alleged.

ex-cm Summoned on govt holiday

The Vigilance Bureau has issued fresh summons to Channi for April 14 even as it is a government holiday on Friday on account of Baisakhi and Ambedkar Jayanti.