Senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister, Prem Kumar Dhumal, said here on Saturday that for the first time since Independence two BJP Prime Ministers of India have truly helped to accelerate the pace of development of Himachal Pradesh.
Addressing a news conference, Dhumal said Atal Bihari Vajpayee granted special economic package to the State while Congress on coming to power withdrew it due to pressure exerted by the adjoining powerful states.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the expansion of the rail network in the State on a war-footing. The successive Congress Governments in the past 70 years had been befooling the people of the State without adding an inch of rail line. Modi Government has approved the strategic Bhanupali–Bilaslpur-Mandi- Manali rail line expanding up the border of China through Rohtang Pass tunnel. It is a slap on the face of the Congress Government which did virtually nothing for the hill State. No share was given to Himachal in the gigantic projects built in the State by the BBMB, he said.
The Prime Minister has also provided funds for making the Pathankot-Jogindernagar line broad-gauge. This line would extend up to Mandi where a big junction of the two lines, Bhanupali and Jogindernagar, would be made. This strategic network of railways had been neglected by the Congress over the past seven decades and even after the Chinese aggression on India in October, 1962.
He said Modi Government had accepted the long standing demand of the armed forces and ex-servicemen of one rank one pension on which the Congress Government had adopted an evasive attitude for decades.