On 1-year celebrations, he says nothing to rejoice when hundreds killed in rain disaster and no poll promises kept
The Newz Radar
SHIMLA: Former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur has raised questions over the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government’s plans to organise a grand function to celebrate the completion of one year in power.
Addressing the media here on Monday (December 4, 2023), the BJP leader asked as to why the state government was celebrating its one-year term when hundreds of lives had been lost in the recent rain disaster in Himachal and thousands of families had been rendered homeless.
“Development work has completely come to a standstill in Himachal. The one-year tenure of the Congress has been a complete failure and the state has been pushed 10 years behind in terms of progress. The Congress has failed to fulfil any of the guarantees and doesn’t have any answer for this,” said Jai Ram.
The former CM said that before coming to power, the Congress had promised to provide employment to 5 lakh youth and one lakh jobs were to be announced in the first cabinet meeting itself. “Instead of providing jobs, the Congress has rendered 10,000 outsourced employees jobless. The government closed 1,500 institutions in the state and completely stopped development work,” he said.
He said that in one year, Rs 12,000 crore loan was taken by the Congress government and if the pace of loan taking continued, it would become Rs 60,000 crore in five years.
Jai Ram alleged that Congress had given 10 guarantees in the elections, but not even one of these guarantees was fulfilled. “What does Congress want to celebrate? There is talk of Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi coming for the one-year celebrations, but they should consider whether in this situation they should attend the programme or not,” he said.
On Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s statement of Rs 100 crore mining scam, Jai Ram said the Chief Minister was into the habit of “speaking without facts”. He questioned why the government closed some crushers while allowing others to operate. “Who owns the crushers that have been allowed to run? The government must answer,” he said.
On the BJP’s victory in three Hindi heartland states, Jai Ram said outgoing Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel was the election in-charge in Himachal and coal, liquor and cow dung scams allegedly took place in his state. He alleged there was a scam worth crores of rupees of Mahadev App, the strings of which were linked to the funding of Congress in the Himachal elections.
In response to a question, he said there was no plan for ‘Mission Lotus’ in Himachal, and that it was possible that the Congress government may fall on its own.
