Congress govt shoulds provided roads, water and rehabilitation in the tragedy affected area: BJP

BJP State President Dr. Rajiv Bindal while addressing a press conference said that the Congress government of the state could not provide roads, water and rehabilitation in the tragedy affected area. Heavy rains caused great damage in various areas of Mandi district and more than 1000 houses were damaged, out of which 300 to 500 houses were completely damaged and 500 houses were partially damaged, there are more than 200 such lands where everyone’s gardens and agricultural land were completely destroyed and big rocks fell there. The problem is that the projects of Jal Shakti Department have come to a standstill and there is no drinking water and the state government has not made any arrangement for this yet, no alternative arrangement has been made yet for the supply of water, this is unfortunate. Most of the roads of Pandoh and Mandi are closed, the government has not made any effort to open them yet, this raises questions or marks on the seriousness of the government. Along with this, we demand that the government should also make permanent arrangements for the affected people who are living in camps.

Rajiv Bindal said that a lot should have been done by the government in the last 8 days but nothing like that was seen on the ground. We want to clearly tell the Chief Minister that maximum and maximum machinery should be deployed in these areas to provide relief to the area. The government should take this issue seriously. All the BJP leaders have been working seriously on this tragedy from the first day, Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur, MLA Vinod Kumar, MLA Deepraj Kapoor and three teams formed by the BJP are continuously working on the ground. If Jairam Thakur had not gone to Mandi district on the first day, perhaps this incident would not have come to light at the right time.

Rajiv Bindal said that the Chief Minister is constantly accusing the BJP and the opposition that we are doing politics at the time of this tragedy, this allegation is wrong. He said that if the Chief Minister considers service as politics, then we will continue doing it, if distribution of ration kits, utensils kits, delivering blankets, meeting the affected and expressing condolences to them, going among them and sharing their grief is politics, then we will continue doing such politics. It would have been better if the Chief Minister and his leaders were also working among the people to share their grief.

Rajiv Bindal said that when the disaster struck in 2001, former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal left all his work and went to visit the disaster-affected area. He would remember the time when he reached the disaster area sitting in an air trolley carrying goods and the crops from remote areas like Lahaul Spiti were transported to Delhi by helicopter. Leader of Opposition Jairam Thakur also handled the state during the Covid pandemic through intense marketing and continuous travel. Bindal said that the government should take immediate action and provide land for the restoration of more than 500 people who have completely lost their homes and gardens of Sab and Khair, i.e. 100% loss. The sad thing is that the present government of the state has not been able to provide land till date to those people who suffered such losses in 2023 and 2024. This is a failure of the state government and the people sitting in the government should think seriously about this.

Rajiv Bindal, while giving examples of the big hands during the tragedy in Mandi district, said that the 16 MW power project in Pandoh has been 100% washed out and not even a single turbine of the project could be found. The roads here have also been closed and the Baglamukhi Mata ropeway built during the BJP government is the only means by which people are able to travel. More than 15 bridges have been broken in this area.

An electricity transformer fell 500 meters away. A dead body from Nachan was found in Dehra Maharana Pratap Dam. The entire tomato crop was washed out. The village of Lambataj where 25 houses were completely wiped out. Many 5-storey buildings were destroyed, it seems that millions of tons or more than 10,000 truckloads of stones and Malwa fell on Mandi district.