LoP ‘lying’ for political mileage, spoke to him about flood relief operations: CM Sukhu
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Friday refuted Himachal Pradesh Leader of Opposition Jai Ram Thakur’s claims that the CM did not respond to his calls on the flash floods and landslides that have caused havoc in the state.
“I and Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri spoke to Jai Ram Thakur, the engineering chief and the Deputy Commissioner, Mandi. Helicopters have been pressed into service in his Assembly constituency to provide relief to affected people,” CM Sukhu said.
During a press conference in Mandi on Thursday, LoP Thakur said his Assembly constituency Seraj was the worst affected in the recent floods, claiming that about 500 houses were damaged in it. The former CM alleged that he was trying to contact Sukhu since morning but there was no response.
Responding to the allegations, Sukhu while interacting with mediapersons here on Friday said that he had spoken with the LoP on Thursday and can show the call records.
“The LoP is telling lies to gain political mileage,” he told the media persons here.
“Disaster is the time to serve and not to take political mileage and my focus is to help the people. The LoP should have served the people of Seraj rather than addressing a press conference in Mandi,” he said.
Search, rescue and rehabilitation works are underway on a war footing, he said.
“I have visited the affected areas and would again visit and meet the affected people,” Sukhu said.
In Mandi district, 14 bodies have been recovered so far while authorities are looking to trace 31 missing people where 10 cloudbursts, flash floods and landslides wreaked havoc on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the LoP said that Mandi suffered unprecedented loss of life and property in the recent devastating cloudbursts and flash floods and Seraj assembly constituency was worst hit, pushing it “25 years back”.
Thakur said while disaster response teams were at the spots, and the CM has conducted aerial survey and distributed ration at Rengulu, the pace in which the relief operations were being carried, it would take three to four months to restore normalcy.
Forty-three people have been killed and at least 37 are missing in Himachal Pradesh due to ravages of the weather — cloudbursts, flash floods, landslides — since the onset of the monsoon last month, officials said on Friday.
The monsoon hit the state on June 20 and has cost the state Rs 5,000 crore in damages. Of the 43, 14 were killed in cloudbursts, eight in flash floods, and one in a landslide, while seven drowned.
Himachal Tribune