Chandigarh, Nov 22 (PTI) Punjab BJP's Mahila Morcha on Saturday held a protest against the AAP government in the state for allegedly failing to fulfil its poll promise of giving Rs 1,000 monthly to women.
Protesters, led by Morcha president Jai Inder Kaur, tried to force their way through police barricades to gherao the chief minister's camp office.
Their attempts were scuttled by the Chandigarh police, who detained them later.
A heavy police force, including women cops, was deployed outside the Punjab BJP office here to stop the protesters from heading towards the chief minister's camp office in Chandigarh.
Addressing a gathering of protesters, Kaur said ahead of the 2022 assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had promised to give Rs 1,000 to every woman.
No woman in the state has yet got what was promised, despite AAP nearing completion of four years in the government, she alleged.
The state government now owes Rs 45,000 to every woman, she claimed, adding that women feel cheated, and the government has committed a "fraud".
Slamming the Bhagwant Mann government over the law and order in the state, Kaur also alleged that with snatching incidents happening every day, women were not feeling safe.
"Every day, cases of snatching, assault, and crime surface across the state, exposing the grim reality of Punjab's deteriorating security situation," she said.
The protesting women said the AAP supremo, Arvind Kejriwal, had made the poll promise at a rally in Moga in November 2021, and the government should honour the promise.
Kaur said the people of Punjab were "wise" and fully understood the "disastrous misrule" of this government.
"The countdown has begun for AAP, and in the 2027 Vidhan Sabha elections, the women of Punjab will give a fitting reply to those who deceived them," she warned.
"Just like Kejriwal is rejected in Delhi, very soon, this government will be shown the door in Punjab as well. The only hope for Punjab today is the Bharatiya Janata Party," she said.
Kaur was accompanied by senior Mahila Morcha leaders, including Parampal Kaur, Menu Sethi, Renu Kashyap, Renu Thapar, Seema Kumari, and Sarabjeet Bath.
The protesting women were holding placards saying "kado milange har mahila nu" (when will women receive it) and "jhoothian guarantees di sarkar" (the government of false guarantees).
When they were prevented from heading towards the camp office, they sat down and shouted slogans against the Punjab government.
Police then removed the protesters from the road, took them in a bus, and detained them.
Meanwhile, AAP chief spokesperson and MLA Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal hit back at Kaur and asked her to instead protest against former chief minister Amarinder Singh, who is also her father.
"She should ask her father what happened to promises made to the people of Punjab when they formed the government in 2017," he said.
Dhaliwal reminded Kaur that Amarinder had taken a sacred oath on the holy "Gutka Sahib", promising to end the drug menace within four weeks, provide one job per household, and give unemployment allowance to the youth.
But after coming to power, he did not fulfill even a single promise, the MLA said.
The AAP government has so far provided government jobs to 58,000 youth, he said and challenged Kaur to give an account of just 10 jobs given during her father's tenure.
In a statement, Dhaliwal said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has already announced that from March onwards, women will start receiving Rs 1,000. Our government is committed to fulfilling every promise, said the former minister.