Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar Wednesday launched a scathing attack on the Congress, saying the party is opposing the portals of various government schemes because the new system has brought to an end to "corrupt practices" prevalent during their regime.
He also said that the Congress is feeling rattled because there is no other chief minister who has kept the grand old party out of power in the state for so long.
Addressing a press conference here after launching three new services to digitally empower beneficiaries, Khattar said that the Congress often attacks his government's flagship Parivar Pehchan Patra (family ID) scheme dubbing it as "pareshani patra".
"They try to mislead the people, but we are saying PPP is such a system which is proving beneficial to the poor. We call it Permanent Protection of Poor People scheme," he said.
"They have a lot of problems with our portals," said Khattar, while adding the portals launched by his government have facilitated various categories of beneficiaries and put an end to "corrupt practices" prevalent during the Congress' regime.
He said the opposition party questions the present government on the job creation.
"During the Congress' time, 80,000 to 81,000 government jobs were given. Against this, we have already given over one lakh jobs during the past eight years. Over the next six months, we plan to give over 60,000 government jobs," he said.
"So, we will be providing 1.62 lakh government jobs during the last nine years, almost double their figure," he said.
In 2014, Social Security Pension beneficiaries were 21.82 lakh, which rose to 30.78 lakh now and as against total expenses of Rs 2,618 crore per annum incurred during the Congress' time, Rs 10,157 crore per annum on social security pensions is incurred now, the CM said.
He then slammed the Congress for saying that state debt is much higher than what the government claims.
"According to their formula, 2 plus 2 equals to five," he said.
When asked that Congress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda has sought a white paper on state finances, he countered, "Why should we bring out a white paper. It is brought when we feel there is something wrong. We had brought out a white paper in 2015 (months after BJP came to power in Haryana) when the Congress was claiming opposite to what the reality was."
"Now, our budget document is our white paper," he said.
Khattar, 68, who became state chief minister in 2014 after BJP came to power for the first time in Haryana on its own strength, said no other chief minister has kept the grand old party out of power in the state for so long.
"Never before they were so rattled by tenure of any other chief minister because no other chief minister kept them out of power for so long. For over 3,000 days now, one CM has never kept the Congress out of power for so long since 1966.
"Maximum period was of five years during (O P) Chautala ji's time or during Bansi Lal's tenure for four-and-a-half years," he said.
When asked about the reports that there are illegal properties worth crores of rupees in the name of slain gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad in Gurugram, Khattar said the government does not have any such information.
However, he said, "if there is any complaint, action will be taken".
He also attacked the Congress over many recruitments during their regime were quashed by courts. "As against this, not a single recruitment was cancelled during our time," the CM said.
Khattar claimed it was because of "leakage and loopholes" during Congress' time because of which these were quashed. "Had there been no corruption, these would not have been cancelled," he said.
When asked that some BJP leaders are saying their party's alliance with JJP in 2019 was for forming government and not for contesting elections in future, Khattar evaded a direct reply, but said in a lighter vein, "Today, we are in alliance. When it is not there, you will come to know, I will also come to know."
Replying to a question that with India becoming the most populous nation, whether there should be a policy to control population, Khattar said this is a national level issue and whatever decision is taken at the national level, the state will go with it.
-With PTI Input
