Senior BJP leader and former Union Minister, Shanta Kumar on Wednesday expressed grief over the cowardly Naxal attack on the on the officers and jawans of the CRPF in Chhatisgarh.
Two of the 24 martyrs belonged to Himachal Pradesh. The BJP leader said the root cause of the growth in naxalism was growing poverty and widening gap between the rich and the poor since Independence caused by the wrong economic policies of the successive Governments making the rich richer and rendering the poor poorer in ten Naxal-affected districts of the country.
"What was the most harrowing fallout of this tragic state of affairs was that as many as 70 crore people were reeling under acute poverty in a country with a population of 1.25 crore. This has clicked the nerve of the poor and instigate them to killing and violence," he lamented.
The former Himachal Chief Minister said for the first time Prime Minister Narender Modi had brought basic changes by making the economic policies as “poor-oriented”. The main thirst of the new policy would be to pull the poor out of the mire of poverty. Now he explained that the rich and upper middle sections of the society would have to bear the maxim burden of taxes with the mission of salvaging the poor and the wretched sections.
It is gratifying that the efforts of the Prime Minister, had already started yielding results, he added.
Shanta Kumar said the alleged global nexus between the medicine manufacturers and some doctors, who prescribe costly medicines, was another cause of concern for the BJP Government and the Health Minister, J.P. Nadda.
He said during the past Congress Government he was also a member of the committees appointed to suggest the huge gap between the generic and the patent medicines, but the vested interests allegedly prevailed upon the then Government.
The former Union Minister, who was on way to Shimla to attend the rally of Prime Minister on April 27, said BJP would come to power in Himachal Pradesh with a bang as it did in the rest of the country ushering in a new era of development and prosperity.