ITANAGAR, Dec 15: The Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) has alleged that Chief Minister Pema Khandu and MoS for Home Kiren Rijiju “told lies” during the inauguration of Pakke-Kessang district on Friday.
In a release, the APCC on Saturday said both the BJP leaders unfairly took credit for the development projects which had been initiated in the state by the Congress party.
“The concepts of Frontier Highway and Industrial Corridor projects were first coined by the Congress. But Rijiju shamelessly included it in his election manifesto for 2014, and promised voters that he would get these two projects started, in order to get votes.
However, his promise has vanished in thin air and till date we have not heard anything about it,” the APCC said.
It added that “major highway scams have hit important road projects of the state and crores of rupees have been engulfed.”
The Congress also criticized the chief minister over replacing the erstwhile Chief Minister’s Universal Health Insurance Scheme (CMUHIS), conceived by former CM Nabam Tuki, with the CM’s Aroyagya Arunachal Yojna (CMAAY).
“The CM should provide correct information to the people about CMAAY and CMUHIS. The CMUHIS had covered more than 3 lakh population and benefitted thousands of people with cashless treatment of diseases of all categories within a short span of time. The CMAAY has empanelled very few hospitals which are unfamiliar to the population, whereas the CMUHIS had empanelled more than 25 hospitals well known to the population and highly equipped with modern technology,” it said.
The APCC further accused Pema of exaggerating the number of visits by central ministers and the prime minister to the state in the last four years.
“During his speech the CM claimed that in the past 24 years union ministers visited the state only 50 times and the state did not witness any development activities. He also said that in the last four years union ministers visited the state 130 times. But the people of Arunachal did not witness any such number of visits. We demand CM Pema Khandu to provide documentary evidence to back his claims,” the Congress stated.
Also responding to the criticism of the Look East Policy by the CM, the Congress reminded him that the “visionary” policy had been initiated by his father and late CM Dorjee Khandu.
