Lok Sabha poll: Congress may play ‘victim card’ over ‘elusive’ special package

KS Tomar

Notwithstanding the coffers being empty, an inordinate delay in the announcement of a ‘Special Package’ by the Centre could not dissuade Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu from announcing Rs 4,500 crore relief and rehabilitation plan, including Rs 1,000 crore under MNREGA, to provide financial help to the floods and landslide victims.

The CM was not deterred by the Centre’s apathy hence went ahead with a special disaster relief package from the state budget to come up to the expectations of the hapless victims of the natural disaster which had claimed over 291 lives, besides causing unimaginable losses to the public and private properties exceeding Rs 10,000 crore.

The Sukhu government is poised to face a major challenge of mobilisation of resources to implement the package as it is already burdened owing to huge debt liabilities which have crossed a mark of Rs 90,000 crore. Economists say that the state government will have no option but to impose a mandatory cut on capital and revenue expenditures in the annual budget which may affect development works.

It will be an uphill task to convince the Centre to relax the manual relief norms so that an enhanced compensation announced by the Chief Minister under various categories could be executed. The Centre has released the funds under the national disaster response fund (NDRF) and the SDRF but the state government cannot violate the relief manual and it will be obligatory to submit utilization certificates (UCs) to regularise the expenditures.

The Centre had sent three teams to assess the damages and loss to life, property and infrastructure which have submitted their reports to the Union government but it is yet to announce a special package. CWC, senior party leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi, Rajiv Shukla, and the Chief Minister have been appealing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to declare Himachal catastrophe a national calamity which should be done on the analogy of the Kutch disaster in 2001 and Kedarnath tragedy in 2103 (losses of $ 1 billion and 5,000 deaths) disasters. But the Union government officials have argued that it cannot be done as national calamity is declared in the rarest of the rare cases and Himachal does not fall in this category.

In this backdrop, political observers feel that Congress government may play ‘victim card ’during 2024 parliamentary polls and accuse the BJP-led government at the Centre of intentionally delaying the timely announcement of a special package. Experts say that the Chief Minister has exhibited the commitment to come to the rescue of victims of natural calamity and state government’s management of natural disaster has been appreciated by Niti Ayog and the World Bank.

Levelling wild allegations: BJP

• Political observers feel that the Congress government may accuse the BJP-led government at the Centre of intentionally delaying the announcement of a special package. State Congress leaders are determined to make it a poll issue and level the allegation of squeezing the Congress government of funds.
• On the contrary, Central leaders, including JP Nadda and Anurag Thakur and Himachal party leaders have lambasted the Congress for levelling wild allegations relating to Central assistance. They argued that the Centre had released the NDRF and SDRF funds in advance which is done in rare cases.

(Writer is a political analyst and senior journalist based in Shimla)