Former Punjab Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Sunil Jakhar on Saturday, 26 September, accused the Bhagwant Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government of attempting to conceal alleged financial mismanagement by appropriating credit for a 100 per cent centrally funded scheme and spending public money on advertisements to do so. The charges were levelled at a press conference in Chandigarh.

The Scheme at the Centre of the Row

Jakhar pointed to newspaper advertisements publicising a ₹750-crore scheme targeting villages with a sizeable Scheduled Caste population, which carried Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's photograph and portrayed the initiative as a state government achievement. He identified the programme as the Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Gram Yojana (PMAGY), which he said has been operational in its current form since 2020–21 and provides development grants to villages where Scheduled Castes constitute more than 40 per cent of the population.

According to Jakhar, the Union government bears the entire cost, with no financial contribution required from the Punjab government. He added that the Centre had identified 3,763 villages in Punjab under the scheme, of which funds had already been released for 1,200 villages, with the remainder expected to receive disbursements shortly.

BJP's Key Allegations

Jakhar alleged that the state government had undertaken no comparable independent initiative of its own for village development, and instead chose to promote its image through publicly funded advertisements. Displaying the advertisements at the press conference, he demanded an immediate apology from the state government.

He further said the BJP would examine whether funds already released had actually reached the intended beneficiary villages or whether any portion had been diverted towards advertising expenditure before reaching the ground. This framing positions the party for a potential audit or inquiry demand in the weeks ahead.

Attack on Mawan Dhian Satkar Yojana

Jakhar also turned his criticism towards the Punjab government's Mawan Dhian Satkar Yojana, a scheme purportedly designed to honour women from families affected by drug-related deaths. He alleged the programme had failed these families, with bereaved mothers and sisters approaching the government for justice only to be offered ₹1,000 in response.

'Rather than respecting them, the government is humiliating them,' Jakhar said, proposing the scheme be renamed Mawan Dhian Tiraskar Yojana — which he translated as the 'Disrespect for Mothers and Daughters Scheme' — to reflect what he called its true character.

Electoral Rolls Controversy

Addressing the ongoing row over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, Jakhar questioned why both the Indian National Congress (Congress) and AAP were staging street protests rather than using the formal objection mechanism available through the Election Commission of India (ECI). He argued that if the parties genuinely believed legitimate voters had been removed from the rolls, the appropriate remedy was filing objections through the prescribed process — not demonstrations aimed at generating publicity.

What Comes Next

The BJP's announcement that it will scrutinise whether PMAGY funds reached beneficiary villages signals the likelihood of a formal demand for an audit or legislative debate. The Punjab government has yet to respond publicly to Jakhar's allegations. With the state's fiscal position already under scrutiny, the political battle over credit for centrally sponsored schemes is expected to intensify ahead of local body elections.