Congress to launch protest ahead of investors’ meet

SHIMLA: In a fix whether to boycott or support the state government’s much-hyped Global Investors Meet at Dharamsala, the HPCC has announced that it will launch a statewide protest from November 6 to 14 against the failure of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre on nine parameters.

HPCC president Kuldeep Rathore addresses mediapersons at the Congress office in Shimla on Monday. Photo: Amit Kanwar

Tribune News Service

Shimla, November 4

In a fix whether to boycott or support the state government’s much-hyped Global Investors Meet at Dharamsala, the HPCC has announced that it will launch a statewide protest from November 6 to 14 against the failure of the Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre on nine parameters.

HPCC president Kuldeep Singh Rathore, addressing mediapersons here today, announced a series of protest marches at all district headquarters. He termed the investors’ meet a “wastage of public funds”.

However, he did not give a clear-cut direction to the Congress MLAs and the Leader of the Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri, who have been invited to the meet.

“The BJP government did not consult the Congress MLAs and now it is inviting them to the meet, which has no rationale,” Rathore said. However, he did not give a direct answer to the question whether the Congress would boycott the meet or not.

Instead, he charged the Jai Ram Thakur government with hiding the differences within the BJP on the issue, as Union Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur was not involved in the preparation of the agenda for the meet. “The BJP is making it an issue to hide infighting,” he added.

Rathore cited “nine points of failure of the Modi-led Central Government” and questioned the inauguration of the meet by the Prime Minister. “He is welcome but he is not announcing a bailout package for Himachal, which is reeling under huge debt. The state has taken loans to the tune of Rs 4,000 crore this year. The meet is nothing but wastage of public funds,” he said.

Rathore said the protest would start from Chamba on November 6 and Rajini Patil, in-charge of party affairs in Himachal, and other leaders such as Asha Kumari, Gurkirat Singh, Nana Patole and Mukesh Agnihotri would lead the party workers.

“We will stage a protest against the failure of the Modi government on nine major parameters of development in the country,” he said.

The protest would conclude at Shimla on November 14, he added.