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Congress, BJP blame each other for Himachal’s economic woes
Chief minister (CM) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Monday said during an interaction with mediapersons that the previous BJP dispensation left behind a mammoth debt of ₹91,000 crore, to repay which the Congress government will have to take more loans.
Struggling to fulfil the “10 guarantees” made before the Himachal assembly elections, the ruling Congress is now accusing the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of pushing the state into a debt trap when the latter was in power.
Chief minister (CM) Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Monday said during an interaction with mediapersons that the previous BJP dispensation left behind a mammoth debt of ₹91,000 crore, to repay which the Congress government will have to take more loans.
“Our government now has to raise loans to clear the debt left behind by the BJP regime,” said CM Sukhu.
“Apart from the debt of ₹75,000 crore in Himachal Pradesh, if we include the liabilities of the 6th pay commission and employees’ DA, the debt burden goes up to ₹91,000 crore. The previous government led by Jai Ram Thakur only made announcements, it never made good on the any promise,” he said before leaving for his constituency Naduan.
Himachal Congress chief Pratibha Singh also issued a statement and said, “The Congress will end up paying the price for the wasteful expenditure incurred during the previous BJP regime. The BJP has no moral right to blame the Congress government for anything.”
While the BJP government left behind a debt of ₹69,476 crore for the current dispensation, it had itself inherited a debt burden of ₹50,773 crore from the Virbhadra Singh-led government.
Former CM Jai Ram Thakur said, “The Congress made the biggest contribution to current debt. Till date, the Congress government has been power at least 10 times, and they took two to three times more loan than the BJP government.”
Thakur said after every change of guard, the new government inherits many expenses in the form of liability, such as DA installment or pension liability. “But CM Sukhu is repeatedly talking about ₹11,000 crore liability, which are on account of employees and pensioners’ dues, and counting it in the debt which is absolutely wrong. When the BJP came to power, we also had to pay the liabilities of the previous Congress government, which we paid without making a fuss,” he alleged.
The former CM also said that if the Congress fulfils the ’10 guarantees’ it made to the people before elections, there will be hardly any money left for development.
“If ₹1,500 is given to women every month in the state, then the annual expenditure of the government will be ₹1,895 crore,” he pointed out.
BJP questions appointments
The BJP, in its state working committee meeting that concluded late on Sunday evening, passed a resolution on the political situation in Himachal and alleged the Congress burdened the state exchequer by appointing a deputy chief minister and 6th chief parliamentary secretaries in a small state like Himachal, clearly violating the 91st Constitutional Amendment regarding the limited cabinet.
