Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ministers denounced the statement of former chief minister Virbhadra Singh who alleged that the financial mess of the state was inherited loss from the previous BJP regime.In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, Industries minister Bikram Singh and Forest minister Govind Singh Thakur said that the poor financial management, unplanned and wasteful expenditure by the previous Congress government have resulted in un-mindful borrowings.
They said that this has burdened the state with a loan of over Rs 46,500 crore and instead of accepting their mistakes, the Congress leader was playing the blame-game and blaming the previous BJP government for the financial mess of the state.
They said that it was the previous Congress government, which had pushed the state into the financial mess and that the Congress government during its tenure appointed over 45 people as Chairman and Vice-chairman of various Boards and Corporations.
Everyone close to the then CM was rewarded with plum posts of Chairman and Vice-chairman, which resulted into wasteful and unnecessary expenditure of crores of Rupees annually, they said.
“Not only this, the previous Congress government made various announcements at the fag-end of its tenure without any financial provisions,” they added.
They said that with an eye on the Assembly elections, the previous Congress government announced the unemployment allowance to the youths of the state.
“Out of lakhs of unemployed youth in the state, only a few thousands were provided this much hyped allowance.
The former CM created Himachal Pradesh Kaushal Vikas Nigam just to adjust his son as its Chairman,” they charged, adding that the Rs 500 Crore Skill Development Allowance Scheme was not implemented effectively in the state, as only 1.5 lakh youth were trained during the last five years against the target of 5 lakh youths.