Rivals question Balachaur MLA over starting parallel kit scheme

Tribune News Service
Nawanshahr, May 15

A day after Balachaur Congress MLA Darshan Lal Mangupur announced to make his personal arrangement to offer kits to Covid patients, his political rivals on Saturday questioned him asking if he and the accompanying health staff actually felt that the state had failed in its promise to deliver the ‘Fateh kits’ to the patients.

Taking a jibe on the issue, SAD leader Rajwinder Singh Lucky said, “The MLA’s move to have his independent scheme to distribute kits to the patients with the same items is a clear-cut signal that he does not have faith in his own government. He has even attempted to create his independent, alternate scheme naming it ‘angarakshak scheme’.”

Lucky alleged that when Mangupur launched his personal scheme on Friday, the area SMO was sitting along with him, which meant that even the health authorities had little faith in the government’s Fateh kit scheme.

Clarifying his position on the issue, MLA Mangupur said, “I had to start the scheme after the government announced that from now on one family would get one kit only. Since my constituency comprises of backward, poor people, I have to ensure their welfare. I started the scheme when some of my supporters suggested that the kits were in a little short supply owing to rising number of Covid cases in the state and that we could set up our own kit scheme as a back-up plan. My idea was just to ensure welfare of my constituents and support the ongoing scheme rather than creating a perception of having started a parallel scheme, an allegation that my rivals are making against me”.

The MLA said that so far he had purchased 200 kits and would order more according to the need of the people of his area.

Meanwhile, several residents of Jalandhar too have been ruing non-availability of the kits. Gurcharan Singh Channi, a city-based political leader, said, “We have been daily getting calls from the health officials asking us if we had got the kits. They are telling us to get kits from Garha centre. There are three patients in our family. When my son, who had already recovered, went to get the kits from the centre, he was returned empty handed. I don’t have much issue as we can afford all medicines and apparatus but I really pity the condition of the poor, who too won’t have been getting any kits.”