Himachal Lokhit Party ups the ante against Congress

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, May 5

The Himachal Lokhit Party leaders have upped its ante against the Virbhadra-led Congress government on the twin issues of state’s rising army of unemployed qualified youth and its 2014 Lok Sabha debacle soon after Transport Minister GS Bali blew the “padyatra whistle” against his own government here on Saturday.

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh during his recent Mandi tour had, however, cut down Bali’s outburst on unemployed youth and re-employment of retired government babus in various departments and corporations to size, saying that no padyatra could get employment.

HLP leaders Mohinder Sofat and Dr Dharam Chand Chaudhary attacked the Congress government on these issues raised by Bali.

Bali’s outburst against Congress president Sukhwinder Singh on the issue of division of Kangra into organisational districts and against Chief Minister on the issue of unemployment has come as a much-awaited weapon in the hands of both BJP and the HLP, even as Congress was yet to resort to the damage-control exercise.

“The Chief Minister should explain on what basis the voters in the state should have voted for the Congress in the 2014 Lok Sabha election. It was not due to any Brahmanism in Mandi, but due to lack of development works in which the Congress failed,” HLP general secretary Dharam Chand Chaudhary said in a statement issued here today.

He charged that Congress legislators and ministers were levelling charges against themselves which had exposed the infighting within the party.

The roads are in a bad shape and the ministers and the CM were busy in laying foundation stones without progress on works, he said.

Sofat said the army of unemployed youth had crossed the 12-lakh mark as pointed out by Congress minister GS Bali which exposed all talks on employment by the state government.

Both the Congress government and the BJP were the same sides of the coin and had failed in providing employment in the state and people were disillusioned with them, he charged.