Under attack from the Opposition for issues including “fleeing” from passing the Lokpal bill in Parliament last month, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday sought to puncture the BJP’s campaign against corruption, by claiming that the party ruling Uttarakhand was earing a “mask of fraud and deceit”. She asked the people of the hill-state to vote for change of government.
“The cheating is going on for the past many years. The fraud is being covered by more lies of different kinds. Finally, the mask of honesty of (former chief minister and BJP leader) Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank got lost in the Kumbh mela,” Gandhi said, hinting at the nearly Rs 43 crore that the Comptroller and Auditor General later described as wasteful government expenditure during the organisation of the annual event in 2010. The Congress president was speaking at an impressive rally here, launching her party’s election campaign in the run-up to the January 30 assembly elections in the state. Gandhi also pitched for a strong lokpal bill and said the opposition was trying to mislead people by disrupting parliamentary proceedings.
Stating that Uttarakhand has enormous natural resources that could be exploited for the development, she alleged that the state government was looting all these resources in the name of development.
“Selling hills and water to worthless people is not development; it is fraud,” she said. Taking a dig at the BJP’s decision to change the chief minister late last year, she said that had not prompted the government to “stop its misdeeds”. “Nothing changed. Neither the dishonesty, nor the loot,” she said.
In this regard, Gandhi pointed out that only 10 per cent of the benefits of UPA’s flagship scheme MNREGA could reach the common people in Uttarakhand. It was largely due to the “carelessness” of the state government that it could spend only 40 per cent of the central funds for development, Gandhi said.
Asking the people to vote in a government of her party in the hill state, she said the “loot” of natural resources could be prevented only by effecting a change of the government -- and not merely by changing the chief minister. “In Uttarakhand, the BJP has to be removed. You can do it with your votes. And I hope you can do it,” she thundered.
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The Congress leader also highlighted the development works carried out with the support of the central government. “Whatever you can see in Uttarakhand has been done with the support of the Centre...be it AIIMS at Rishikesh, IIM at Kashipur, IIT, a central university, hotel management institute and Rishikesh-Karanprayag rail line project,” she added.
In Tehri, where she addressed another rally, Gandhi promised to bring rail line to Garhwal region as early as possible. She also vowed to solve the rehabilitation issues related to the mega Tehri dam.