Actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut, a first-time MP from Mandi who is on a visit to cloudburst-hit areas in Himachal Pradesh, has turned towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi in hope of relief in the aftermath of multiple cloudbursts that wreaked havoc in her home constituency on the night of July 31 (2024).
In a post on her Facebook account in which she tagged Prime Minister Modi and the BJP, Kangana Ranaut wrote: “People have lost everything…. In the vastness of that loss, I feel immense pain and grief. Our hope is @narendramodi @bjp4india.”
The post is significant as the Congress-led Himachal Pradesh government has for long been appealing for relief from the PM Modi-led BJP government at the Centre. This year, the losses have been estimated at around Rs 800 crore while the devastation was pegged by the state government at over Rs 10,000 crore last year.
There was wrangling between the state and the Centre over receipt of disaster relief funds as the Modi government claimed it gave around Rs 1,800 crore whereas the Sukhu regime maintained the grants received were much less, and that whatever were received were routine funds under the national disaster response policy.
Kangana expressed confidence that Prime Minister Modi would once again come to the aid of the people of Himachal Pradesh. “PM Narendra Modi will definitely send a package. He had sent a package of Rs 1,800 crore last time and he will send it now too and it will go to Sukhu ji. I would say that an investigation should be started on whether the displaced people will get that money or not. Whatever corruption has started here should be curbed.”
In a statement, CM Sukhu had said last year that the Himachal government had sent as assessment report to the Centre estimating its rain losses at around Rs 10,000 crore. “But what the Modi government gave was Rs 600 crore, and that too from the disaster relief fund that would have anyways reached the state,” he said.
CM Sukhu had, which he claimed was for the first time in any state’s history, created a special fund to compensate the people who had suffered loss of lives, houses and land. He alleged that the Himachal BJP leadership had failed to convince their own party-ruled Modi regime at the Centre to extend a special package to Himachal in view of the losses caused by the devastating rain.
Amid the wrangling, it needed to be seen whether Kangana Ranaut would be able to convince PM Modi for extending a special package for Himachal. More so as Bihar was recently accorded a special package for dealing with floods and its prevention.
