Kejriwal launches Pujari Granthi Samman Yojana

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday launched the registration for Pu-jari Granthi Samman Yojana. He visited the Shri Marghat Wale Baba Mandir at Kashmere Gate along with his wife Sunita Kejriwal to start the registration for the scheme.

This comes after the former Chief Minister of Delhi on Monday announced 'Pujari, Granthi Samman Yojana' under which he stated that the priests of temples and the 'granthis' of the Gurudwara will re-ceive an honorarium of about Rs 18,000 per month. He further stated that this scheme would be implemented once the AAP from the government wins in the upcoming polls in the national capital.

"Today I am making an important announcement regarding a scheme. The name of the scheme is Pujari Granthi Samman Yojana. Under this, there is a provision to give an honorarium to the priests of temples and the 'granthis' of the Gurudwara. They will be given an honorarium of about Rs 18,000 per month. This is happening for the first time in the country. The priest is a class that has carried forward the rituals from generation to generation. They never paid attention to their family and we never paid attention to them," said Kejriwal.

Meanwhile, as angry priests foiled Kejriwal’s attempt to launch the Scheme’s registration from Hanuman Mandir in Connaught Place on Tuesday, the BJP’s New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj said his “political oppor-tunism” had been rejected and exposed.

Swaraj slammed Kejriwal’s “fundamentally wrong and self-serving” pre-poll announcement of paying a monthly honorarium of Rs 18,000 to priests of temples and gurdwaras and asked why church priests had been excluded from the proposal.

She also questioned why mosque maulvis had not been given the promised honorarium for the last 17 months.

Swaraj said Kejriwal’s political opportunism had been exposed.

Denying that BJP workers prevented Kejriwal from launching the Pujari Granthi scheme’s registration, she said it was Hanuman devotees who pushed him out of the temple and stopped him from launching the deceitful proposal.

Calling the priest-granthi dole announcement a latest example of “Arvind’s Appeasement”, Swaraj ques-tioned why Kejriwal thought of announcing the Pujari Granthi honorarium only at the fag end of the AAP government’s 10-year rule.

In a poetic criticism of Kejriwal, Swaraj said, “Vidyalaya ka kara vada, marudalaya ka jaal bichaya, chunav nikat aya to Kejriwal ko devalaya yaad aaya. (Kejriwal expanded a net of liquor vends after promising to build schools, now he is reminded of temples as the elections are approaching).”

Swaraj hit out at Kejriwal for making hollow announcements to appease pujaris and granthis.