Ahead of three-year completion of Jai Ram Thakur’s government in Himachal Pradesh, the Opposition Congress on Friday claimed that the chief minister doesn't have even three notable achievements to showcase to the people of the state.
“The incumbent government is a burden on the people of the state. There is nothing to celebrate about its three years. Rather, I suggest the people should rather mourn its continuation as three crucial years have gone to waste,” said leader of the Opposition Mukesh Agnihotri.
Agnihotri said 2,000 people have died in the state just in the past one year. They included 1,000 due to poor management of the Covid-19 situation and other 1,000 committed suicide.
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“Till now we had only heard of farmers’ distress and suicides in other states. We never had such a high number of suicides. You can see people of all ages, young and old, committing suicide. Covid-19 has claimed 1,000 lives, half of them only in the past one-and-a-half months,” he said.
Launching a direct attack on the chief minister for his “dismal performance”, the leader of the Opposition termed his three years in the power as “criminal wastage of time”. While all other past chief ministers have something to their credit that the people still remember, Jai Ram Thakur has nothing to hard sell. Now, he is taking the pretext of Covid-19 to cover up his failures,” he said.
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Agnihotri wondered why Thakur has chosen to go on a celebration mode for his government. A function has been planned in Shimla wherein defence minister Rajnath Singh will join BJP national president J.P. Nadda in a virtual session.
He asked, “Can’t the chief minister tell his leadership in Delhi that he has done nothing in the past three years? There has been such a loss to the state in terms of valuable lives, economy, jobs and suicides. How can the government justify all this and celebrate?”
Agnihotri asked the chief minister to tender an apology to the people of the state for the deaths and drop the celebrations.
“The chief minister has destroyed the state and betrayed the people's mandate,” said the Congress leader. He claimed that the tourism industry was in a big crisis. The government was being run on borrowings. The administrative expenditures were at an all-time high and there is a huge debt burden.
Most pet projects of the chief minister such as the international airport proposed in Mandi district have not taken off, no investment has come to the state despite mega-events – global investors’ meet. The government is unable to face the Opposition in the state Assembly and the winter session was cancelled.
