After 10-day break, Himachal Pradesh CM joins Haryana election campaign

Having rested for about 10 days following ill health, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu today addressed an election meeting in poll-bound Haryana. Sukhu remained confined to his residence for 10 days but attended to official work and met ministers, MLAs and officers.

Sukhu had to cancel his tour of Jammu and Kashmir on September 23 after he was suddenly taken ill. He is likely to leave for New Delhi after the campaign in Haryana.

Before leaving for Haryana, the Chief Minister said that the BJP was trying to mislead voters in Haryana by making false claims that the Congress had not fulfilled the guarantees it had made to the people of Himachal before to the 2022 Assembly elections. “We have already fulfilled the first guarantee of restoring the old pension scheme (OPS),” he added.

He said that his government had given the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 30 for maize and Rs 40 per kg for organically grown crops. “If my government had not done good work, the people of the state would not have given six of the nine Assembly seats, on which byelections were held, to the Congress,” he claimed.

The Chief Minister said that there was no communal tension in the state and the people of all religions, regions, castes and communities were living in peace and harmony. “It is absolutely wrong on the part of some people to try to get political mileage by fanning communal tension,” he alleged.

He said that a policy for street vendors would be formulated to ensure that there was proper verification of everyone coming from any part of India to work in Himachal. “The Vidhan Sabha Speaker has constituted a committee, headed by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister. The committee, which includes ministers and MLAs from both Congress and BJP, will formulate the policy,” he added.