If ‘corrupt’ HP govt uprooted, India will be Cong-free: Shah
BJP chief Amit Shah on Sunday gave a clarion call to party workers to “uproot the corrupt” government in Himachal Pradesh and make India “Congress-free” by bringing BJP to power with majority in the Assembly elections due next year.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Vijay Rath will reach Himachal Pradesh after conquering Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in Assembly polls. The Congress government in the state will also fall and India will become Congress-free,” he said at a conclave for booth-level BJP office bearers of Shimla (Reserve) Parliamentary constituency here. Defending the Centre's demonetisation move, Shah attacked previous UPA governments and the Virbhadra Singh dispensation “for patronising corruption”.
Hitting out at those raising a “hue and cry” over note ban, he claimed that “only those with piles of black money are feeling the heat. The common man has no problem and has welcomed the move”.
“Demonetisation is a lethal step to destroy a parallel economy that runs on black money, choke funding to terrorists, stop extortions by Naxalites and take on fake note rackets,” he said.
Shah said the Prime Minister while announcing the decision to scrap high-value notes on November 8 had said that there would be some inconvenience for the initial 50-day period. Twenty-five per cent of black money deposited with banks will be used for the welfare of the poor. 50 per cent will be deducted as tax and 85 per cent penalty will be imposed on undisclosed money, the BJP chief said.
Hitting back at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh for criticising the government, he said, “Scams to the tune of Rs 12 lakh crore surfaced in the UPA regime but not a single case of corruption has been reported in the two-and-a-half years of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government.”
“The country has a Prime Minister who speaks out, has dialogues with people, understands problems of the masses, cracked down on black money and rolled out 92 public welfare schemes,” Shah said.
Accusing state government of not allowing welfare programmes of the Centre to percolate to people, Shah said, “The Centre has giving projects to Himachal Pradesh but the state government is not accepting the same.”
The Centre's efforts will yield results when a BJP government is installed in the state, he asserted.
Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J P Nadda said the Centre had alloted Himachal Pradesh Rs 75,000 crore worth of projects but these had not made “satisfactory progress due to the state government's lukewarm response”. Listing achievements of the Centre, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, P K Dhumal claimed he raised the One-rank-onePension (OROP) scheme for the first time in 1990.
“I had asked the government to bring the OROP scheme by removing anomalies in it. However, it was only implemented by the present government,” he said.
Dhumal claimed every section of the society was annoyed with the state government and they would express their resentment in the Assembly polls which BJP will win with majority.