leader of Opposition in the lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj on Saturday said that Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh preferred to address the Congress party workers instead of a public meeting as he did not have the courage to face the public in Raipur on his visit to Chhattisgarh.
“It has never happened with any Prime Minister that one comes for election campaign and could not even face the people. The PM’s speech at the Congress party workers’ meet had not just one, but a total bag of lies,” she said in a Press conference here on Saturday evening.
Swaraj said that Dr Manmohan Singh, in his speech, said that the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was given by the Centre to Chhattisgarh.
“The fact remains that when I was the Union Health Minister in 2003, I visited AIIMS in New Delhi and saw how people carried patients in their arms to get them treated in the hospital. I asked the then AIIMS Director, from where these large number of patients come to AIIMS. Statistics was provided to me sometime later in which it was found that maximum number of patients arrived from States of Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Uttaranchal to AIIMS for treatment in New Delhi,” Swaraj said.
“A decision was taken immediately by me to open AIIMS establishments in all the five States, none of which were BJP ruled States at that time,” she further said.
“The Centre during the Congress rule under Ajit Jogi had asked for 100 acres of land from the Chhattisgarh Government, which was allotted and a boundary was raised within 10 months for setting up AIIMS in Raipur,” she said.
“Today, if someone is claiming that AIIMS was given by his Government, I want to ask him that for five years there was no work done on the project. Not a single brick for the establishment was laid,” Swaraj said.
“I had decided that the work of the AIIMS building including hiring of staff and faculty should be complete in two years so that it does not get late. It’s after nine years, the building is ready, admissions have taken place and yet it is not fully functional. So the work we (NDA Government) did , they (Congress) kept the work closed for five years. The AIIMS establishment was the gift of the NDA rule,” she said.
On Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s remark in an election speech on Friday that the nomination of Nand Kumar Patel as the CM was a certainty in Chhattisgarh if he was alive, the leader of Opposition said that the BJP is assured about the fact that Chief Minister Raman Singh would have proved heavy for any CM nominee of the Congress party in Chhattisgarh.
She said that the BJP would prove by making the Government for the third time that there is also a ‘pro-incumbency’ factor in politics.
The hunger for development is so much in the people that if they receive development, they would like to bring that the Government again and again to power.
To a query on the dissidence in the party in Chhattisgarh, Swaraj said that the MlAs have their own anti-incumbency. There is no ‘sitting’ or getting ticket factor in it. The image of the MlA among party workers, the people and his working style is considered while offering a ticket. In this, many MlAs don’t get a ticket and many new faces get the ticket.This is a normal process.
Many people (dissidents) feel they must get the ticket so they stand in revolt. So there is also a process of reconciliation. Many times they are successful and many times not, she said.
Those who got the ticket sat (ready to contest for the party) and those who did not are also in the poll fray.
After the polls results get out, they will know how right or wrong they were (dissidents), she added.