Punjab CM slams Congress, BJP for 'looting country'

Hamirpur (Himachal Pradesh), June 11 (IANS) Slamming the Congress and the BJP for "looting the country", Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Saturday said the Britons enslaved India for 200 years but after independence both the parties made the people slave.

Addressing a gathering here, the Chief Minister said both the Congress and the BJP played "friendly match" with each other for plundering the public wealth. He said that like the Britons, they also robbed the people of their rights but people had no other option except electing them again and again.

Mann said but now in form of AAP people have found a catalyst of change in the country and the people are rejecting both the parties by opting for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The Chief Minister said the winds of change that started from Delhi under Arvind Kejriwal had then engulfed Punjab and now it is ready to sweep the entire country.

He said AAP is ready to storm Himachal Pradesh adding that the Congress and the BJP will be routed out from the hill state.

Mann urged the people to oust then for carving out a new and prosperous Himachal.

Training his guns against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the Chief Minister said even after crossing 50 years of age, the scion of Nehru-Gandhi family is still a youth leader.

He said a youth is debarred from getting government job after crossing 37 years of age but on the other hand a 94-year-old person contests the poll for becoming MLA or MP which is completely unjustified.

Mann said AAP is pivot of change in the country a reflection of which is that more than 70 MLAs in Punjab are less than 35 years of age.

The Chief Minister said that while the successive governments had turned schools into mid-day meal buildings, the AAP governments at Delhi and Punjab have transformed them into temple of learning from where job-givers and not job-seekers are being produced.

Describing quality education as panacea of all ills, he said that it is a powerful tool which can only transform the lives of people.

Mann said the people should support AAP to empower a common man through quality education as being done in Delhi and Punjab.

Striking an emotional chord with people of Himachal Pradesh, the Chief Minister recalled the days when he visited the state.

He said Dev Bhoomi Himachal Pradesh is a blessed land and he is fortunate to be here. Mann said the youth of Himachal Pradesh is very talented and the time has come when their enormous potential is tapped for the progress of state and prosperity of its people.