‘BJP a divided house, its leaders fighting for survival’

The BJP in the state is a divided house and its leaders are fighting for their survival. This was stated by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu while talking to media persons at Nadaun helipad, near here, today. He said that multiple groups had emerged in the BJP and each group is trying to feed information to the BJP high command as per its convenience. This had resulted in misinformation even to the Prime Minister.

Sukhu said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently talked about the delay in disbursement of salaries to employees in the state. The PM was not informed that Himachal Pradesh had emerged the first state in the country to give two salaries to its employees in one month. He added that government has also granted 11 per cent dearness allowance to the government employees in just 22 months of its tenure.

The Chief Minister said that the state government was poised to make the state self-reliant but BJP leaders are creating hurdles by delaying Central assistance to the state. He said that the government has already fulfilled five out of 10 guarantees and was actively working towards fulfilling the remaining as promised.

Sukhu criticised the previous BJP government, stating that during their tenure the quality of facilities in Himachal Pradesh had declined. Reiterating his commitment, he stated that the government was working to make Himachal Pradesh self-reliant by 2027 and one of the most prosperous states in the country by 2032.

Later, the Chief Minister inaugurated a newly established sub-division office of Public Works Department (PWD) at Bijhari in Barsar Assembly constituency of the district. He said that this sub-division would help improve the maintenance work of roads in the Dhatwal area. The Chief Minister also inaugurated the strengthening work of the 12 km Barsar-Shahtlai road completed at a cost of Rs 3.19 crore. He said that this would benefit locals as well as pilgrims visiting the temples of Baba Balak Nath at Shahtlai and Deotsidh.

He also laid the foundation stone for the strengthening work of the 24-km Saloni-Deotsidh road to be improved at Rs 26.32 crore. He said that the road that was 3.2 metres wide would be widened to 5.5 metres thereby improving vehicle mobility.

MLAs Suresh Kumar and Captain Ranjit Singh Rana, ex MLA Manjeet Dogra, KCCB chairman Kuldeep Singh Pathania, chairman APMC Hamirpur Ajay Sharma, president, District Congress, Hamirpur, Suman Bharati, Congress leader Pushpinder Verma, Deputy Commissioner Bilaspur Abid Hussain, Deputy Commissioner Hamirpur Amarjeet Singh, SP Bilaspur Sandeep Dhawal, SP Hamirpur Bhagat Singh and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.