Shivraj’s 5 months outweigh Kamal Nath’s 15: Scindia
Bhopal: BJP Rajya Sabha member Jyotiraditya Scindia has launched a scathing attack on Kamal Nath and said that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s five months in power outweighed the 15-month rule of his Congress predecessor who he claimed headed a “disruptive” government in the state.
Scindia alleged that Congress leader Kamal Nath did not even come out of the Vallabh Bhavan during the 15 months he was the Chief Minister and did not worry about the state’s development. That is why the five-month balance sheet of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is heavier than his, he remarked.
By-elections are slated to be held in 28 Assembly constituencies in the state on November 3 and Scindia, who left the Congress to join the BJP, is the star campaigner of the BJP. He is visiting different place to recount the “shortcomings” of the erstwhile Kamal Nath government and the “merits” of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan dispensation.
In conversation with IANS during his election campaign, Scindia asserted that the bypolls are all about “destruction vs development”. The state had a corrupt and a destructive government for 15 months. After ending it, a pro-poor and development- oriented government has been formed.
Scindia said that Kamal Nath as Chief Minister neither made new plans nor do any new developmental work in 15 months and did not even make a single visit to meet the people. He had established a centre of corruption with industrialists in the Vallabh Bhavan, Scindia said.
The BJP MP said that on one hand, the balance sheet of Kamal Nath’s 15-month government is in front of the people and on the other hand that of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who dealt with coronavirus pandemic over several months, apart from launching new schemes.
He said that the development plans in every region were launched. An example of this is the Gwalior-Chambal Expressway. During the tenure of Kamal Nath, he was requested many a times to take up the project but he ignored it. The project was approved by Shivraj Singh and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari in five months. The expressway is a project of Rs 8,500 crore. Similar projects and schemes worth crores of rupees have been started in each Assembly constituency, Scindia said.
Attacking the working style of Kamal Nath, Scindia said that as the then Chief Minister for 15 months the Congress leader did not visit any division in Madhya Pradesh during this period, but now that the by-elections were round the corner, he was approaching people to ask for votes.
There was very heavy rains in the state but even during that time he did not visit the affected places, said Scindia. “I was in the Congress then; and Shivraj Singh from the BJP visited the affected areas. The Chief Minister is actually the chief servant of the people. He should stand with the public in times of grief and suffering, but Kamal Nath did not leave the Vallabh Bhavan.”
In the Madhya Pradesh by-elections, the opposition Congress has been continuously attacking Scindia for “getting ignored by the BJP”. On this, Scindia said every election is important and it is fought seriously. “I am doing the same. As far as Congress allegations are concerned, I have neither aspired for any post nor a red beacon, nor ever fascinated by these things.I have always fought for the people, fought for the uplift of the poor, and their development.”
Scindia expressed his unhappiness over the declining quality of public discourse during the by-elections. He said that he was into public service for the last two decades, but never imagined that this level of language would be used in political arena.
The BJP leader said that the decline in standards of language used increases as the election dates get nearer, which is contrary to our culture. The Congress claimed to speak about women, but its leader Kamal Nath’s use of word ‘item’ against BJP candidate and Dalit Minister Imarti Devi from Dabra (Reserve) segment shows his character and intention.
Scindia said that this is not the first time that such attitude of the Congress leaders vis-a-vis women had come to the fore. “Former Leader of Opposition and Congress leader Ajay Singh too had called Imrati Devi a ‘jalebi’. Two years ago, what former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh said about former MP Meenakshi Natarajan cannot even be mentioned. Kamal Nath, far from apologising, is just trying to justify it by maintaining that word item numbers are mentioned in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha documents. This is a strange argument of Kamal Nath,” said Scindia.
