HAMIRPUR: Major Vijay Singh Mankotia, the chief ministerial candidate of the today hit the sentiments of the people of the lower Himachal by declaring that if the party was voted to power, Dharamshala would be made the winter capital of state and a bench of Himachal Pradesh High court would also be set up at Dharamshala.
Addressing reporters at Dharamshala today, Mankotia state convener of the BSP said that the winter capital status to this town was a long-pending demand of the people of the lower hill areas of the state. The BSP was committed to run all the administrative affairs of the state government from Dharamsala for at least four months from November to February as in the case of Jammu and Kashmir. In the rest of the year, a permanent additional chief secretary along with senior officers of other departments would be deputed in this town by bringing in a legislation decentralizing powers so that the files of routine works need not be moved to Shimla for any clearance, he said.
Talking about the problems being faced by the employees of the lower hill areas in the tribal belts of the state, he further promised to bring in legislation for evolving a policy on transfers and postings of the government employees, which would aim at posting them near their homes.
Adding that there were thousands of educated youth and government employees hailing from the tribal belts who could better work there near their homes, he said that the employees were the backbone of any government or the state as a whole who would never be made to become victims of petty politics.
“We promise to restore the self respect and dignity of the people of the hill state by providing them a clean and transparent government responsible and answerable to the common man”, he said.
The other major announcement he made included to set-up a central university at Dharamsala, streamline financial management system of the state, initiate legal action against the corrupt bureaucrats, politicians including the chief minister/family members, power brokers and land mafias.
While having a dig at Congress and BJP both, he said that both these parties were worried over the social engineering formula adopted by the BSP in the state, as a result of which, they were not able to decide the names of their candidates fearing dissidence. “I think the Congress as well as the BJP has been attacked by paralysis”, he said in a jest.
He announced that the BSP would release its first list of the candidates within this week and would not look for dissidents to join them as feared by the Congress and BJP leaderships. “We have hundreds of young faces waiting in the line to get the party tickets”, he added.
