Growth, not vendetta politics, is my agenda, says Jai Ram Thakur

Tribune News Service

Shimla December 26

Listing the achievements of his regime, Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur today said he believed in the politics of development and not vendetta, which is why he had ensured all-round development of the state without discrimination. He was addressing a press conference here on the completion of three years of the BJP government.

Thakur said that from day one, his mission was to put an end to vendetta politics and registration of cases against political opponents. “It is for this reason that I never discriminated against any Assembly segment when it came to development, unlike the previous government when constituencies of not just BJP legislators, but also of some Congress MLAs, not aligned with the then Chief Minister, were ignored,” he said, while hitting out at the Congress.

To drive home his point, Thakur said that development works worth Rs 400 crore had been inaugurated or the foundation stones had been laid in the Haroli Assembly segment of Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Mukesh Agnihotri. “It’s a different matter that he does not miss any opportunity to hit out at the government quoting wrong facts, but I want to tell him that he should see the ground beneath him slipping as in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had a lead of 15,000 votes in Haroli,” said Thakur. He added that similarly, projects worth Rs 100 crore had been completed in Shimla (Rural), which is also represented by a Congress MLA.

He said that the pace of development had slowed down but not stopped. “Despite severe financial constraints and an expected revenue decline of 11 per cent during the 2020-21 financial year, we have ensured all-round development of every section, including farmers, youth, women, employees and weaker sections,” he said.

Various programmes such as the Jan Manch, Mukhya Mantri Swawlamban Yojana, organic farming and the solar fencing scheme had been launched. He lashed out at the Congress for misleading people with distorted facts, be it on Covid mortality, suicides or outstanding loans.

Talking about the financial health of the state, he said, “We are still repaying loans raised by the previous Congress government as we inherited a debt burden of Rs 48,000 crore,” he said.

He said that no government could function without loans and his regime had to pay an outstanding loan of Rs 7,870 crore taken by the Virbhadra Singh government.

Cong leaders raised ‘fraud bill’ of Rs 12 cr

• The CM said the Congress leadership raised a fraudulent bill of Rs 12 crore for the work claimed to have been done during the pandemic, whereas the reality was that no such help had been extended to people
• “When Congress leaders do not hesitate from cheating their own party, I wonder what would have happened if the Congress was in power in the state during the Covid times,” he said