Panchayats forced to contribute to Kangra valley carnival: BJP

With the Kangra valley carnival beginning today, it has allegedly courted a controversy. State spokesperson of the BJP Sanjay Sharma, while addressing a press conference here today, alleged that the panchayat bodies across Kangra district had been forced to contribute to the carnival.

Sharma alleged that the district administration of Kangra had issued an official order, directing the panchayats in the district to contribute amounts ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,500 for the carnival. The funds of panchayats were received from the Union Government for works in rural areas. However, the present government was using these funds to organise the carnival with which people living in rural areas of the district had nothing to do, he said.

The BJP spokesperson said just before the Lok Sabha elections, about 100 persons were recruited for various positions in Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) without following any procedure. Most of those recruited were from a single constituency and the government should come clean on it.

Chairman of HPTDC RS Bali termed the allegations levelled by the BJP as baseless. He said it was unfortunate that every positive initiative being taken by the Congress government was being politically vilified by the BJP. The Kangra valley carnival was being organised to attract tourists to the region. It was due to the BJP policies when it was in power that tourism in the Kangra region had suffered. Now when the present Congress government was making efforts to revive tourism in the area, the BJP was trying to create political controversies over it, he said.

Bali said the state tourism department was funding the Kangra Valley carnival and nobody had been forced to contribute for its events. About the allegation that 100 persons were recruited in the HPTDC without following any procedure, Bali said no rules were violated for the recruitment in the tourism corporation.