Excelsior Correspondent
SAMBA, Oct 6: Accusing all political parties of befooling them in last 67 years by seeking their votes in Parliamentary elections, the West Pak refugees today warned that they will field their own candidate in the next year Parliamentary elections to highlight their issue in the Parliament themselves.
Addressing a largely attended rally at Swanka Morh in Vijaypur area of the Samba district today, president of West Pak refugees Laba Ram Gandhi said that false assurances were given by all the political parties to them during last 67 years and they failed to pursue their cause in right perspective.
Mr Gandhi said had these parties pleaded the cause of refugees from West Pakistan sincerely they would have been granted citizenship rights by now as these parties were ruling in the State as well as at Centre.
He said the West Pak refugees have now lost all faith in these parties as they live in abject poverty and are unable to call themselves as the citizens of the State as they have been not been conferred the citizenship rights so far.
He said the young generation of the refugees is totally frustrate as they can’t seek a Government job in J&K and the refugees can’t tolerate this discriminative attitude of the State Government as well as the political parties.
He said the two main political parties in Jammu BJP and Congress should this time support the West Pak refugee candidate from Jammu -Poonch Parliamentary Constituency in case they are interested in the welfare of these refugees as the refugees ensured the success of their parties in past elections.
He said to test the strength of the West Pak refugees a maha rally will be held on November 10 in which entire youth from 21,000 registered families will participate.
He said there are more families of West Pak refugees but they have not been registered till date.
Mr Gandhi demanded that the issue of West Pak refugees be settled once for all as has been recommended by Parlia-mentary Standing Committee also. He said Centre is interested in settling the issue but the State Government was creating hurdles.
Others who addressed the rally included Saju Singh Manhas, general secretary of the refugees, Bahadur Mal, Jaswant Singh and Darshan Lal.
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