Corruption at its peak in Himachal Pradesh: Nadda

Corruption is at its peak in Himachal Pradesh and the state government is dependent on the Centre’s aid for running its petty affairs, said JP Nadda, while addressing BJP workers at Bilaspur today. He said the situation was so miserable that the state had imposed a toilet tax in the state, adding that the tax had lowered the dignity of the state in the country.

Nadda said Congress always played the cards of caste, religion and division of society to meets its political interests. He said Congress was synonymous to ‘anti-national’.

Nadda claimed it was only the BJP government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that had brought development to the state. He said projects, including four-lane highways, tunnels and over 93,000 houses for the homeless were introduced by the BJP government and they had brought prosperity to the state. Elaborating further he said other development works in the state were also carried out under the BJP’s regime, including building AIIMS-Bilaspur, three medical collages at Hamirpur, Chamba and Nahan, a super specialty hospital and cancer hospital in Shimla and a hydro engineering college in Bilaspur etc.

A bridge, the foundation stone for which was laid by former PM Indira Gandhi, was constructed by BJP leader and former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal after over 25 years, he said.

Taking a hit at Congress’ leaders, he said the involvement of the party’s leader was reportedly observed in a Rs 5,600 crore drug racket and that Rahul Gandhi left no opportunity to denigrate India when he visited abroad.

Appreciating the Modi-led Union Government, Nadda said the country had become the fifth largest economy of the world due to the government’s policies and that the country was growing at a rate of 6.8 per cent as per the report of the World Bank.

Lambasting Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, Nadda said Sukhu was the first CM of the state who had failed to pay salaries to employees on time. He added that instead of providing facilities to people Sukhu had closed a number of government institutions that were started by Jai Ram Thakur when he was the CM. He said Sukhu had even failed to keep his MLAs with him as nine of them had left him. He said the BJP government had given Rs 1,190 crore to the state to overcome the damage cause by natural disasters in four installments.