Having a limited presence in the outgoing state government meant that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could not effectively stop corruption in the administration, general secretary Rituraj Sinha said today.
He was reacting to a question on why the BJP did not do more to oppose corrupt practices that it alleges were part and parcel of the government when it was one of the coalition members. In its manifesto for the upcoming election, released today, the saffron party said that it would form a special taskforce led by a retired Supreme Court judge to probe allegations of corruption against the outgoing government.
While criticising the Trinamool Congress for its range of electoral promises, the BJP made several of its own, which included to implement the Seventh Pay Commission, a Rs 50,000 bond for every girl child and free education for girls from kindergarten up, free LPG cylinders, annual financial assistance to landless farmers and fishermen as well as Rs 24,000 per year for widows and single mothers.
Sinha said that as far as the Congress Party is concerned, the people of Meghalaya know that every vote for them is a vote wasted because Congress will not be a part of the next government.
On the taskforce, he stated that the BJP, after nearly nine years in power at the Centre, has given India a “scam-free, corruption-free government” and has done the same in North East states where it is in power.
“The people of Meghalaya have suffered because the state governments back to back have not been able to check rampant corruption,” Sinha said.
He further said that everything committed in the manifesto has gone through elaborate assessment, both from a policy implementation standpoint and also from a policy funding standpoint.
When asked how a BJP-run Meghalaya government would fund its elaborate promises, he gave an unclear answer, saying, “At this point in time, I would only say to the extent that if Meghalaya elects a double engine government, which means [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi at the Centre and BJP in Meghalaya, every support that Meghalaya needs and deserves will be given to ensure that the state, which is one of the slowest developing states amongst the eight in the North East, catches up with the likes of Assam, which has seen rapid progress with a double engine government in the last few years.”
