Shimla, March 17 In a scathing attack on the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government, Leader of the Opposition in the Himachal Pradesh Assembly, Jai Ram Thakur, said on Tuesday that the administration and law enforcement agencies in the state have been operating on an ad hoc basis, while those close to the chief minister have been holding cabinet positions.
He made the statement after the state government withdrew cabinet positions from advisors and top officials of state government commissions, corporations, and administrative bodies.
Sukhu alleged that the Chief Minister's Office is "full of contractors posing as advisors," and that the decision to revoke cabinet positions was merely "a failed attempt to deceive the public."
"If the government truly wanted to curb wasteful spending, this decision should have been made immediately after the court removed the Chief Parliamentary Secretaries in November 2024," he said.
Thakur claimed that there is a climate of distrust towards the government and the chief minister in the state.
He cited issues of "corruption, deteriorating law and order, and the plundering of the state's natural and financial resources."
The BJP leader indicated that they were preparing to corner the government during the upcoming Assembly session and said that the Opposition has submitted formal notices regarding "stalled development projects, the dismal state of law and order, and other issues of public interest."
Providing satisfactory responses to these queries will prove to be a challenging task for the government, he said, and accused the chief minister of "consistently misleading the House by making false statements."
Thakur alleged that a large syndicate is currently active, engaging in extortion by misleading people under the guise of Section 118 of the Himachal Pradesh Tenancy and Land Reforms Act, which deals with the transfer of agricultural land to non-agriculturists, and claimed that this illicit activity is driving a continuous exodus of industries from the state.
Even after three and a half years, the trend of shutting down institutions established in the public interest has yet to cease, he said.
Taking the government to task over the issue of corruption, he raised strong objections to the decision to exempt the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Vigilance Department from the purview of the Right to Information Act.
He questioned what exactly constitutes "confidential information" that the government seeks to conceal from the public.
The RTI Act, which was introduced during the Manmohan Singh government's tenure to ensure transparent governance, is now being brazenly flouted and weaponized for political ends by the current Chief Minister, he alleged.