Himachal Pradesh News
Himachal Pradesh News : Congress, BJP Trade Barbs Over Central Disaster Aid to Himachal After Nadda’s Shimla Address
Congress and BJP spar over Central disaster aid to Himachal Pradesh after BJP chief JP Nadda’s Shimla speech, with both sides trading sharp accusations over funding and governance.
A sharp political exchange has erupted between the Congress and the BJP following BJP national president JP Nadda’s felicitation function in Shimla, where he claimed that the Centre had provided ₹3,789 crore as disaster relief to Himachal Pradesh, in addition to funds for various development works.
Rejecting the claim, Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Vinay Kumar said the Centre had not extended any special assistance to help the state cope with disasters. “What JP Nadda said is far from the truth and appears to be an attempt to mislead the public. He should clearly state how much money was given, under which schemes and under what heads,” Kumar said.
Responding to the Congress charge, senior BJP leader Satpal Satti said the party was unsettled by Nadda’s “clear and factual” remarks and was resorting to misinformation. “Claiming that the Centre has not provided disaster relief to Himachal is completely false. The HPCC president is misleading people with baseless statements,” Satti said.
On the ₹1,500-crore relief package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi a few months ago, Satti said the assistance was under process and would be released in accordance with established rules. “There is no political pressure behind the delay. The state government should instead disclose how many formal proposals, detailed project reports and utilisation certificates it has submitted to the Centre,” he said.
BJP state president Rajiv Bindal also weighed in, saying Nadda’s speech had put the state government “in the dock.” “It was an eye-opener. The Centre is extending support, but the state government is responsible for stalling development works,” Bindal claimed.
The HPCC president, however, countered that the state’s economic crisis was a legacy of the earlier “double-engine” BJP government. “The claims made by Nadda in Shimla lack substance and credibility,” Kumar said, alleging that despite being a Union Minister for the past three years, Nadda had failed to provide concrete support to the state. He further accused BJP MPs of misleading people with “fabricated statistics.”
Hitting back, Satti said the Congress government was attempting to divert attention from its own failures by blaming the BJP and the Centre. “The reality is that Himachal’s economic crisis is the result of mismanagement, administrative chaos and indiscriminate freebies announced by the Congress government,” he said.
