Genuine effort or mere eyewash?

The meeting convened by the Congress to get feedback from the four candidates who lost the Lok Sabha elections, party MLAs and office bearers turned out to be more of a formality than a genuine effort to ascertain the reasons for the humiliating defeat. AICC in charge Rajni Patil instead of having a one-to-one interaction with the candidates and other party leaders took the feedback in the presence of former Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and former minister Vidya Stokes. “If there was any seriousness about the whole exercise, Patil and state Congress president Kuldeep Rathore would have met the candidates, MLAs and office bearers individually. There was no logic in doing it in the presence of Virbhadra, whose utterances against the candidate and party leaders had caused immense damage to the party. “If this is the approach of the party of merely performing a ritual of holding introspection without any seriousness then the Congress will fare even worse in the 2022 Assembly polls. Nobody can save the party,” remarked a veteran leader. The BJP is having the last laugh seeing the state of affairs in the Congress.

Plum posting mania

Transfer season is back and officials who had been shifted due to the poll code stipulations have already begun lobbying to occupy their postings of choice. The more enterprising ones have already sought DO notes from the concerned politicians while others who lagged behind are adroitly stalling the transfer of their fellow colleagues to the places they were eyeing.  As usual, Baddi Barotiwala Nalagarh industrial area is the hot spot of such transfers where officials desirous of being posted are not only pursuing their own cases but also keeping a hawk’s eye on others having similar interest. Even those who had proceeded on leave have made a comeback. Such is the lure that it gives insecurity even to those who are well entrenched. At least that is what one understands from the recent transfers which took place here.

Local investors bewildered

With the Chief Minister abroad along with senior bureaucrats out to woo investment in the state, local investors are wondering about their status. Local investors, who have brought up hotels and small scale industry in the state, are facing various problems. For hotel industry poor infrastructure in the form of road and parking places is a bane. The small scale industry has been demanding some concessions in power or state taxes. It is harassed by the dominance of the truck union as it charges high freight rates from them. With the Chief Minister organizing road shows in Germany to woo foreign investors, the local investors are asking government to look inwards also.