War of words heats up between Congress, BJP in Himachal

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 26

The war of words between the Congress and the BJP is getting shriller. A day after BJP Legislature Party leader Jai Ram Thakur slammed the government for denotifying hundreds of institutions opened by his government in the last six months of its tenure, the Congress hit back saying that a majority of these institutions had been opened or upgraded despite objections from the Finance Department.

Addressing a press conference here today, Congress MLAs Harshwardhan Chauhan from Shillai, Rohit Thakur from Jubbal-Kotkhai and Anirudh Singh from Kasumpti claimed that the BJP government opened over 900 institutions in the last six months, pushing the debt-ridden state into financial crisis.

“The BJP opened 32 offices including circle offices, divisional and sub-divisional offices in its last six months. Just to put it in proper perspective, only five electricity offices had been opened in the last 40 years. How can one justify that?” asked the MLA.

“The power board has already run up losses of over Rs 1,750 crore. Such indiscreet decisions will push the board into deeper financial mess,” he said. He alleged that the government misused HRTC buses for its political rallies and owes around Rs 15 crore to the HRTC.

The Congress MLAs also rejected the claim of the BJP that the decision to denotify these institutions was illegal as only the Cabinet can overturn the decisions taken by the previous Cabinet and the Congress was yet to form its Cabinet. “The BJP needs to understand that the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister comprise the Cabinet at the moment. The

Cabinet is there, it will be expanded into a full Cabinet shortly. So the charge of cancelling decisions with having a Cabinet is baseless,” said Chauhan, adding that the guarantees given by the Congress will be taken up in the first meeting of the Cabinet shortly.

Meanwhile, the BJP continued its attack on the Congress, reiterating its charge of the decision to denotify institutions being unconstitutional. “The Jai Ram government did developmental work in the Shillai constituency which had not been done for the last 40 years. Instead of being thankful to the Chief Minister, he is supporting the decision to shut down the institutions in his constituency,” said the BJP MLAs.

Denotification move legal

• The Congress MLAs rejected the BJP claim that the move to denotify institutions were illegal as only the Cabinet can overturn the decisions taken by the previous Cabinet
• “The BJP needs to understand that the CM and his deputy comprise the Cabinet at the moment. The Cabinet is there, it will be expanded into a full Cabinet shortly,” they said

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