Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma took on the Congress and its leadership for “keeping in illusion poor people for decades on their poverty alleviation plank”.

While disbursing the benefits of his government’s pro-poor schemes and social security initiatives on the “Antyodaya Kalyan Divas” under the week long ‘Rajasthan-Day’ celebration in his home district on Thursday, Sharma slammed the grand old party’s leadership for its failure to deliver to the poor masses on this task.

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“Right from the first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to Indira Ji, Rajiv Gandhi, and the leadership of the subsequent periods, no one was familiar of poverty and the miseries related to the curse of deprivation and also none of them had any idea about solution to the problem,” he said.

“Moreover, it, in fact, was not their concern; merely a slogan for them,” the chief minister quipped.

“On the contrary, we, under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have been working from the very beginning for welfare and well-being of those who are in the last line, the remotest (the most backward).

The programme today is also dedicated to this cause as benefits of a number of schemes are being transferred to targetted beneficiary amidst the Rajasthan Day celebration, he added.

Sharma also targeted his predecessor, Ashok Gehlot, for “not effectively delivering on the promises of good governance and the outcome of schemes with specific reference to incidents of paper leaks, in his previous regime.

“The former chief minister,” he said, “could not perform on the ground by going among the masses. Even now-a-days, the Ex-CM has been over-active and involved on Twitter and other social media platforms.”

At the function, the chief minister has transferred through banks, funds of social welfare schemes into bank account of 72,000 construction workers, presented land allotment letters and titles (patta) to 3000 beneficiaries under the Sva-Swamitva scheme and gave away electric wheelchair to 1800 especially abled and milk booth allotment letters to 311 beneficiaries.

He also announced the launch of free electricity up to 150 units per month to beneficiaries of PM Surya Ghar yojna and also initiated the process of establishing MLA Jan Sunawai Kendra in each of 200 assembly segments with investment ceiling of Rs 10 lakh each.