Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Sunday criticised the Congress party for allegedly not playing the role of a constructive Opposition and said that instead of cooperating with the government during the Covid pandemic “they merely kept on criticising (the BJP-led state government) and did not render any help (to it)”.

Addressing a public meeting at Nagrota Surian in Kangra district, Thakur said “all round development” was being executed at a brisk pace across the state without any discrimination.

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He thanked the people for supporting the Central and state governments amid the Covid pandemic and said the people of HP were following the Covid guidelines that were issued by the authorities.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi steered the nation amid this testing time and provided vibrant, transparent and dynamic leadership. He safely took the country to the shore and emerged as a world leader due to his outstanding leadership qualities. Besides, decade old problems and issues like construction of Ram Temple, revocation of Article 370 and 35 (A), standoff at borders etc were solved due to his strong and resolute leadership,”

Thakur claimed. He said that various people including students, workers and entrepreneurs stranded across the country during the Corona crisis, mainly at Kota, Goa and in southern India, were brought back to their native places in HP.

“Over 2.5 lakhs people came back to their villages last year. Various Mahila Mandals, Youth Clubs, NGOs and individual distributed masks, sanitisers and free ration to the needy in the state. All people worked coherently to get over the pandemic,” he said.

The Chief Minister said today India was making over 6 lakh PPE kits daily and now the country became self-sufficient in producing N-90 masks, PPE kits and Corona vaccine.

He thanked the Prime Minister for giving 500 ventilators to the state when requested. He urged the people to cooperate in the vaccination campaign and said the country had to move ahead in spite of all difficulties and “we should come forward to take the nation to the top”.

He thanked the people for giving the BJP a clean sweep in the Lok Sabha general elections 2019 and a “thumping majority” in recent PRIs polls in the state.

The CM elaborated over various welfare schemes and programmes like Jan Manch, Social Security Pensions to various beneficiaries, Mukhya Mantri Sewa Sankalp Yojana, Him Care Yojana, Sahara Yojana etc being executed by his government.

He said social security pension of one thousand rupees is being provided to women on attaining 65 years of age, which has been enhanced to Rs 1,500 at turning 70.

The BJP government believes in giving relief to the common man without any discrimination in the state and over Rs 150 crore had been spent for providing free treatment to patients under Him Care Scheme, he said.

Apart from this, during the current financial year 12,000 houses would be constructed for those without any house in the state, Thakur said.

He added that the issue of construction of a railway over-bridge at Ghar Jarot would be taken up with Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and that all possibilities would be explored for improvement of Dehra-Jawali Road.