Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Friday held the BJP-led previous government for the state’s backwardness.
Hitting out at the saffron party, he alleged those who had opposed the movement for a separate Jharkhand state grabbed the power and looted it for 20 years. Soren was in Dhanbad for the government outreach programme ‘Apki Yojna, Apki Sarkar, Apke Dwar (your scheme, your government at your doorstep)’.
Addressing a public meeting at Baliapur, the JMM executive president said that Jharkhand was rich when it became a separate state and had a surplus budget. "But people who were in power till 2019 looted the state’s treasury in the name of development and made Jharkhand sick in 19 years," he said. He said, "I don’t know what the previous government did in the past 18-19 years as problems in villages remained intact in the state. Jharkhand has a massive pool of officers and staff but they used them in personal service rather than solving people’s problems."
The chief minister inaugurated development projects worth Rs 408.39 crore and laid the foundation stones for 135 projects worth Rs 122 crore during the programme. Soren said that he came to assess the progress of development projects in villages, whether the benefit of projects is reaching villagers or not.
"Though due to Covid, my government did not get much time, we have changed the governing system completely. Now the government in Jharkhand will function from villages and not from Ranchi or Delhi," he said. Soren alleged that the central government is sitting on coal royalty of Jharkhand and that has choked the pace of development in the state.
The chief minister also mentioned the various welfare schemes launched in the past four years for women, youths and elderly people. Soren said that he was surprised to see a huge migration of workers from Jharkhand during the Covid period. "Now, we have fixed 75 per cent quota of jobs for local youths so that they do not need to go outside for employment,” he said.
