Bid to show solidarity on 1,000 days of Khattar govt

Geetanjali Gayatri

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 21

In a bid to dispel the impression of divisiveness, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar today attempted to project there is unity in the state Cabinet. He was addressing mediapersons here on the occasion of 1,000 days of his government.

Khattar was accompanied by Cabinet ministers Capt Abhimanyu, OP Dhankar, Kavita Jain, Krishan Lal Panwar as also now mellowed down Anil Vij. He enumerated his government’s many achievements. Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma, however, was not present though sources close to Khattar justified his absence maintaining that all those ministers, who were available in Chandigarh, were invited to the press conference.

Though these ministers, in a show of solidarity, shared the dais with Khattar, it was the Chief Minister who did all the talking, as they occasionally nodded in agreement. Together, they released a booklet highlighting the achievements of the government in 1,000 days.

The Chief Minister also downplayed dissidence in the BJP. He said there was no division in the party and there were no “dissident” MLAs. “Every MLA wants maximum development in his constituency and we also want development in every Assembly segment. We have heard their demands and are working on developing the entire state without bias,” he said.

Also, for the better part of the press conference, the Chief Minister harped on the “wrongs” of the previous Congress government, which his government has attempted to correct. “The previous government passed on a legacy of subterfuges they had employed to circumvent the system. We have spent a lot of time establishing systems where none existed,” Khattar said.

Khattar compared his tenure with the 10 years’ rule of the Congress. He appreciated “Gujarat’s fiscal health” during Narendra Modi’s time. “The fiscal health of Haryana has improved. The state is spending 89 per cent of the budget on the heads of salary, pension, repayment and interest compared to 102 per cent in 2014 when we assumed power. Gujarat spends about 65 per cent of the budget on these heads, which is way better than us, meaning thereby that it has greater availability of savings,” he said.

He was critical of the Congress for its failure to implement the recommendations of the committee headed by former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for the benefit of farmers, for “neglecting” Mewat, practically “ruining” the power sector, which was neck-deep in debt, and lowering the standards of education by following the “no detention policy”. His government has done a lot to rectify these problems, he added.