Chandigarh: Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Monday hit out at the ruling BJP government of poll-bound Haryana over several issues including unemployment, state debt and agriculture and held that the state was poised for change as the BJP has totally failed its people on all fronts in the past 10 years.
Addressing newspersons here in connection with the upcoming Haryana assembly elections, the former Union finance minister, also held that Haryana Congress was not a divided house and would fight the upcoming October 5 state assembly election unitedly. The party would release its manifesto next week, he said.
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Stating that about 70% of the state population is dependent on agriculture in one way or the other, he attacked Haryana BJP government alleging that 32% of the agricultural debt was owed to the professional money lenders, not to the institutional lenders which means that the state government has completely failed to provide agriculture debt to the farmers.
Alleging further that the ‘fasal bima yojana’ was a total failure, he held that the number of farmers registered under this scheme in Haryana was about 8.88 lakh in 2021which has fallen to 7.64 lakh in 2023-2024.
Referring to the farmers’ protest against the now-repealed three farm laws, he asked farmers to throw out the BJP government.
Alleging that Haryana had the highest unemployment rate in the country, Chidambaram quoted CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy) data saying that the unemployment rate in Haryana was 37.45%.
The former finance minister also hit out at the state government over the issue of the economy which he held was in “shambles’’. He further alleged that the state is in a debt trap as its public debt has increased from Rs 71,000 crore in 2014-2015 to Rs 3.17 lakh crore in 2024-2025.
On the question of Arvind Kejriwal’s announcement that he would resign as Delhi’s CM, Chidambaram said that it only concerned the people of the Nation Capital and that the people of Haryana have no concern or any interest in it.
Reply to a question pertaining to BJP leader Anil Vij’s recent claim for the post of chief minister if BJP was elected, Chidambaram said that this certainly put speed breakers on the Modi’s juggernaut and one of the fallouts is that the Central BJP is losing control over the state BJP and it also shows state BJP is not united.
To another question about the BJP’s ‘double engine’’ government, he quipped: “the BJP boasts of a double-engine government. One engine is without fuel and the other is completely broken down. What is the use of such a double-engine government? The time has come to junk the two engines’’.
