“Education Minister Rohit Thakur and Public Works Minister Vikramaditya Singh hit back at Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur, accusing him of making baseless allegations to stay in the spotlight. They emphasized that the maintenance and repair of government properties, including minister’s bungalows, was a routine process. In fact, funds were also allocated for the repair of Jai Ram Thakur’s government bungalow during his tenure.
The ministers urged the Leader of Opposition and BJP leaders to contribute constructively to the state’s development as part of their opposition duties. However, they alleged that BJP leaders from the state are repeatedly obstructing financial aid to Himachal Pradesh by misguiding the Center about actual borrowings they did during their time. Last year, the state government submitted a claim of Rs 10,000 crore for disaster relief, but instead of pushing the same with the centre, the BJP leaders played a cheap role in halting the aid and created hurdles for the release of the funds, which were to be provided to the state for mitigating Disaster that ravaged the State during last monsoon.
Furthermore, they pointed out that funds to the tune of Rs 9200 crore of NPS were lying with the Central Government, and questioned that how much benefits they gave to the employees of the State Government during their regime. The duo suggested Jai Ram Thakur and other BJP leaders to assist the state government in retrieving the stuck up amount of NPS with Union Government.
They said that the BJP didn’t even pay benefits of more than Rs. 10,000 crore to the employees in the form of arrears and held the Dearness Allowance burdening the present government to repay the same. The current Congress government has provided a 7% dearness allowance to employees, considering their interests, and is releasing full arrears of over 28,000 pensioners above 75 years of age this year.
The previous BJP government only released Rs 50,000 as only first installment of arrears. The ministers assured that the current Congress government will revive the state’s economy within a year and provide pending benefits to government employees. They also highlighted that the current government has secured the future of retired employees by restoring old pension to 1.36 lakh employees, unlike Jai Ram Thakur who challenged employees to contest ‘elections for pension’.
The ministers criticized the Central Government for imposing restrictions on Himachal Pradesh, including reducing the loan limit to Rs 6600 crore, resulting in a loss of Rs 1200 crore to the state. Additionally, the loan limit for externally aided projects has been fixed at Rs 2900 crore for three years, and GST compensation has been stopped.
They also alleged that the 15th Finance Commission has done injustice to the state by reducing the revenue deficit grant from Rs 10,249 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 3,257 crore in 2025-26, resulting in a loss of approximately Rs 7,000 crore for development.
Finally, Rohit Thakur and Vikramaditya Singh exposed a massive scam in the Himcare scheme, where Rs 1000 crore was released without basis or rules during the previous BJP government’s tenure, with Rs 450 crore given to private hospitals. They assured that the current Congress government will investigate this scam and bring the culprits to justice.”
Mocking on the BJP’s audacity to accuse Congress of reckless spending, they said that the BJP’s own history of lavish, wasteful expenditures, indulging in luxury while ignoring the real needs of the people. It’s the height of hypocrisy for the BJP to criticize the Congress when their track record is marked by financial mismanagement and extravagance.
