BJP sounds poll bugle with Dharamsala rally

Tribune News Service

Lalit Mohan

Dharamsala, February 4

The BJP sounded the election bugle with its national president JP Nadda holding a rally at Dharamsala in Kangra district yesterday. Party leaders set the rhetoric and the tenor of the campaign for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

To target Cong over unfulfilled promises, ‘bias against Kangra’

• While senior BJP leaders are concentrating on national and state issues, including unfulfilled guarantees, Kangra leaders are raising local issues. Sullah MLA Vipin Singh Parmar, state general secretary Trilok Kapoor and former minister Bikram Thakur are accusing the Congress government of ignoring the district
• The party leaders are accusing the Congress government of not paying Rs 30 crore to the Forest Department for the transfer of 55 hectares of forestland at Jadrangal in the Dharamsala Assembly constituency for a campus of the Central University of Himachal Pradesh
• They say that the Union Government has allocated Rs 250 crore for the campus but the funds have not been utilised as the state government is not paying Rs 30 crore for the transfer of forestland to the university.

The BJP leaders will target the state government over unfilled poll guarantees, infighting in the Congress and governance ‘failure’. They also intend to counter Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s charge that the Union Government has not provided enough financial help to the state in view of the monsoon fury last year.

Nadda and Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur are also countering Sukhu’s charge that the state has not been given Central grants to recover from the natural disaster. They say that the Central Government has given Rs 1,782 crore relief to the state in view of the rain disaster.

Former Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur is leading the crusade against the Congress government over unfulfilled poll guarantees. He says that women are waiting for Rs 1,500 per month grant from the state government while people are awaiting 300 units of free electricity.

Thakur alleges that Congress MLAs and state ministers are not happy with their own government. Even HPCC president Pratibha Singh is openly venting her ire against the government.

He claims that the state government has mooted a proposal to reduce pension. He alleges that under the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) rules, retired government employees get 50 per cent of the basic pay plus DA as pension but the government has mooted a proposal to pay only 30 per cent of the basic salary plus DA as pension to them.

The BJP leaders allege that earlier there was only one Cabinet minister (Chander Kumar from Jawali) in the Sukhu government and another minister (Jaisinghpur MLA Yadvinder Goma) was inducted only recently. They allege that the ministers from Kangra have been given relatively less important portfolios.

The BJP leaders claim the party will again win all four seats in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, as it did in the 2019 elections.

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