Paonta Sahib, February 11
“Corruption is an issue which will be talked about in elections. But personally I am not in favour of personalised politics. Political battles should be fought on issues, policies and programmes of the parties,” says Dr Manmohan Singh, a member of the Central Working Committee and Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, holding that “politics is basically a conflict of ideas”.
“Personalised politics vitiates the atmosphere and creates unnecessary bitterness. I do not have any first-hand knowledge of what is happening here,” he says, maintaining that “as far corruption is concerned and there is irrefutable evidence against persons indulging in corruption, such things will naturally come up in public. And election is the time when voters need to be educated so that they elect people with clean and neat image.
“We are making an endeavour to cleanse politics of this serious menace. It is why we have picked spotless people like Mr Rattan Singh (Paonta Sahib) and Mr Harshvardhan Chauhan (Shilai) as our nominees for the
February 26 elections,” he said expressing his “disappointment at the new trend of politics for ticket and power”.“Idealism in politics is vanishing fast. In present-day politics, it is struggle for power and the party ticket. People have lost respect for ideals and commitment. It is why the incidence of indiscipline is growing in almost all major political parties. I am for strong action against rebels. But it is for the disciplinary committee to decide such cases. I am not aware that rebels once thrown out for opposing party candidates are readmitted in to the party immediately afterwards,” said Dr Manmohan Singh.
Criticising the NDA government at the Centre, he said it had failed to check fiscal deficit which had been growing rapidly. It was unfortunate that a convention started by him for consulting representatives of farmers, industry, labour, trade and other sections to ascertain their views on the budgetary proposals has been discontinued this time.
“The present Finance Minister claims openness and maintains that he will present an open Budget. But I do not know why does he not want to interact with various sections of society who are directly affected by the budgetary proposals,” he added.
When asked whether results of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections could lead to advancement of the Lok Sabha elections, Dr Manmohan Singh said that though “nothing can be ruled out in politics, he does not see any such thing happening.”
“The Congress is going to win a comfortable majority in Himachal Pradesh as growing unemployment, poverty and corruption during the past five years of BJP rule in the state has annoyed people. It is only the Congress which can give good governance. If one looks back at the history of the country, one finds that whenever the Congress was strong, the country was strong and it witnessed development in all areas.
“We hope to bring Information technology in a big way to Himachal Pradesh to generate employment. Horticulture needs encouragement. The present production needs to be supplemented by research and advancement in areas of processing, packaging and marketing,” he said.
When asked why the Congress was shying away from naming its chief ministerial candidate, Dr Manmohan Singh said it had been a tradition in the party for the elected legislators to elect their leader.
On his arrival here, Dr Manmohan Singh was accorded a warm welcome by party workers. He was taken in procession to the venue of the rally where party workers from both Paonta Sahib and Shilai Assembly constituencies had gathered.
Mr Rattan Singh and Mr Harshvardhan Chauhan, sitting MLAs from Paonta Sahib and Shilai, respectively accused the BJP government of “open discrimination against Sirmaur”, saying that though the Chief Minister had promised to treat Sirmaur on a par with Hamirpur — which incidentally had returned all five BJP MLAs — in reality he gave a stepmotherly treatment to this district.
Even vacancies in Sirmaur district were filled with candidates from Hamirpur, Kangra, Una and Bilaspur districts. Healthcare and education facilities were far from promised.
Earlier, former Haryana Chief Minister and President of the Haryana Pradesh Congress Committee, Mr Bhajan Lal, launched a severe attack on the NDA Government at the Centre holding it responsible for the “Kargil episode”. He said it was the Congress with a rich history of sacrifices in the freedom struggle and building up of free India while the BJP was a party of opportunists which could only take pride in claiming responsibility for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
Jathedar Kartar Singh Takkar, a member of the parbandhak committee of Gurdwara Paonta Sahib, cautioned voters against the “nefarious designs of the Congress rebel” and appealed to people to bring the Congress to power for overall development of this neglected area.
Baba Harbhajan Singh demanded that Paonta Sahib should be brought on the rail map of the country and a university be started here.
