Prem Kumar Dhumal says party has repackaged old promises
TNN|
Updated: Nov 02, 2017, 11.57 AM IST
The BJP's CM face, Prem Kumar Dhumal, said the Congress's manifesto released on Wednesday was similar to the one in it came out with in 2012, and that it had something on offer for all sections of society but would fail to deliver.
He said Congress's earlier manifesto made 222 promises, but the party did not even 108 of them. “The party's manifesto released in 2012 had similar points as the one released today. It made tall claims of increasing revenue of the state, improving quality of education, and providing more employment opportunities to educated youth. Time and again, Congress claims to have fulfilled 100% poll promises, but the truth is that 31 points of the manifesto were divided into 222 sub-points and 108 points out of 222 were not even touched upon by them,“ he said.
Dhumal said instead of living up to the promises made, Congress ensured the opposite. “They promised to increase revenue, but made zero efforts in the past five years. Instead of increasing revenue, they increased unplanned and reckless spen ding. They could only survive their tenure by raising a loan of Rs 20,000 crore, which is now touching Rs 50,000 crore.
This is despite the additional special grant of Rs 75,621crore awarded by 14th Finance Commission,“ he said. Dhumal said education was one of the key points in the 2012 manifesto and points such as better quality of education, a university for journalism and communication, a centre of excellence for development and promotion of innovations, and nano-technology centres in technical universities were proposed.
“While schools were opened only out of political consideration, no importance was paid to infrastructure and availability of teachers, which led to certain schools functioning without teachers, while there were many that were understaffed,“ he said.
He said the other promises in the field of education only remained on paper.“Another faux pas of the Congress government recently brought to light by Virbhadra was the promise to pay unemployment allowance to youth. Realizing the backlash this could cause in upcoming elections, Virbhadra took to Twitter to announce that the allowance had been provided to 16,149 youth of the state.
Less known to his knowledge, this makes only 1.79% of the total 9 lakh unemployed youth in the state,“ he said.“These are only few points that have been highlighted; the list of Congress government's incapabilities are endless. It is due to the incompetency and indifferent behavior of Congress government, Himachal Pradesh has gone 10 years in time with respect to development,“ he added.
He said Congress's earlier manifesto made 222 promises, but the party did not even 108 of them. “The party's manifesto released in 2012 had similar points as the one released today. It made tall claims of increasing revenue of the state, improving quality of education, and providing more employment opportunities to educated youth. Time and again, Congress claims to have fulfilled 100% poll promises, but the truth is that 31 points of the manifesto were divided into 222 sub-points and 108 points out of 222 were not even touched upon by them,“ he said.
Dhumal said instead of living up to the promises made, Congress ensured the opposite. “They promised to increase revenue, but made zero efforts in the past five years. Instead of increasing revenue, they increased unplanned and reckless spen ding. They could only survive their tenure by raising a loan of Rs 20,000 crore, which is now touching Rs 50,000 crore.
This is despite the additional special grant of Rs 75,621crore awarded by 14th Finance Commission,“ he said. Dhumal said education was one of the key points in the 2012 manifesto and points such as better quality of education, a university for journalism and communication, a centre of excellence for development and promotion of innovations, and nano-technology centres in technical universities were proposed.
“While schools were opened only out of political consideration, no importance was paid to infrastructure and availability of teachers, which led to certain schools functioning without teachers, while there were many that were understaffed,“ he said.
He said the other promises in the field of education only remained on paper.“Another faux pas of the Congress government recently brought to light by Virbhadra was the promise to pay unemployment allowance to youth. Realizing the backlash this could cause in upcoming elections, Virbhadra took to Twitter to announce that the allowance had been provided to 16,149 youth of the state.
Less known to his knowledge, this makes only 1.79% of the total 9 lakh unemployed youth in the state,“ he said.“These are only few points that have been highlighted; the list of Congress government's incapabilities are endless. It is due to the incompetency and indifferent behavior of Congress government, Himachal Pradesh has gone 10 years in time with respect to development,“ he added.
(This article was originally published in The Times of India)
