Sonia flags off Congress poll campaign in Himachal

Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Tuesday kick-started the poll campaign in Himachal Pradesh with a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government and accused it of not making any efforts to take the benefits of Central schemes to the poor and needy in the state.

Addressing a rally in Mandi, Gandhi said central funds to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore allocated to the state had lapsed last year as the BJP government did not make adequate efforts to implement various central schemes in the state.

"There is a difference between the promises and actual work of the BJP," she said and charged that the saffron party was only pretending to fight corruption and rising prices and did little efforts on the ground.

"These people (BJP) are taking big about tackling corruption when they themselves are deep into it. Their fight against corruption is just a show off. Before raising a finger against corruption they should introspect," she said.

Gandhi said it was a matter of shame that corruption had afflicted the system of governance and said only the Congress party had made attempts to tackle it head on by implementing the Right to Information law.

"Who brought the RTI Act? Did the BJP enact it? It was the UPA which brought the RTI Act to tackle corruption," she said.

Elections to the Himachal Pradesh assembly are scheduled to be held on November 4.

Gandhi sought to defend the recent hike in diesel prices contending that it was inevitable because of the increase in international crude prices.

The UPA chairperson, however, pointed out that Congress-ruled states had reduced VAT on diesel to cushion the impact of the diesel price hike, a move which was lacking in the BJP-ruled states.