Punjab BJP president Kewal Singh Dhillon said, “That is why he (Arvind Kejriwal) is making a political issue out of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) notice on security issues related to buses running under the Chief Minister Pilgrimage Scheme.”
Dhillon said the Human Rights Commission has taken action against 1,000 buses across the country due to incidents of fire in sleeper buses in the last one year.
He said, “Such incidents are happening again and again, in which people are losing their lives. It is a complete lie to link this incident only to Punjab. In January, the Punjab government had informed the Human Rights Commission that no sleeper bus is registered in Punjab.”
Dhillon alleged, “This means that all the buses running under the pilgrimage scheme in Punjab are private buses brought from other states. Not only have the buses been brought from outside Punjab, but the people running the scheme have also been brought from Delhi. Kejriwal, through his close aide, is running the Punjab Chief Minister Pilgrimage Scheme like a bus mafia.”
He said that giving false statements is Kejriwal's habit. Before accusing Kejriwal of trying to shut down the pilgrimage scheme in Punjab, he should clarify whether the scheme was stopped after the BJP formed the government in Delhi.
Dhillon said, “Kejriwal will have to answer this question first.” Meanwhile, BJP leader Shwet Malik targeted the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann over the poor health system. Malik said that government hospitals in the state were running without specialist doctors.
Citing health department data, he said that out of 2,098 sanctioned posts of specialist doctors in the state, about 1,000 posts are vacant. Malik said that this crisis has increased further because the Punjab government has not made even a single regular recruitment of experts from 2022 till now.