Congress, BJP leaders spar over projects in Dharamsala

Tribune News Service

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, January 18

A tussle has started between Congress and BJP leaders over taking credit for various development projects to be inaugurated by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur in Dharamsala tomorrow. The Chief Minister is scheduled to inaugurate the Dharamsala ropeway project built at a cost of Rs 200 crore in the city. It is the biggest private investment in Kangra district in the past four years.

Tussle for credit

• The Chief Minister will inaugurate the Dharamsala ropeway project on Wednesday.
• BJP MLA from Dharamsala Vikas Nehria has said the ropeway is the biggest project to be gifted by the Chief Minister to the city.

BJP MLA from Dharamsala Vikas Nehria has claimed credit for it. In a press conference held recently, the MLA said that the Dharamsala ropeway was the biggest project that would be gifted by the Chief Minister to the city. It would help boost tourism in the region and also ease traffic rush between Dharamsala and McLeodganj.

Former minister and AICC secretary Sudhir Sharma in a press statement, has claimed that the BJP was trying to take credit for the development projects brought up by the previous Congress government. The MoU of the Dharamsala ropeway project was signed between the state Tourism Department and Dharamsala Ropeways company in 2015. The present government had contributed to delaying the project, he said.

Sharma said that if the BJP government wants to claim credit for the ropeway project, it should also tell the people of Dharamsala what happened to the second capital status accorded to the city by the previous Congress government. The BJP government could not bring up the Central University of Himachal Pradesh (CUHP) campus in Dharamsala . The war museum was brought in Dharamsala by the previous Congress government and was inaugurated by late CM Virbhadra Singh. However, the BJP government had failed to open it for general public in the past four years of its tenure, he alleged.

Congress spokesperson Rajesh Sharma, in a press conference held here today, said that instead of indulging in such a gimmick, the government should tell people why the expansion of the Gaggal airport had not been started, why the work on the Himani-Chamunda ropeway project had not been initiated and why the work for the IT park project proposed for Dharamsala had not begun, he added.

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