Hitting out at Congress and National Conference, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Saturday said that the Doda district had been brazenly neglected for nearly seven decades when these parties were ruling both at Centre as well as in the state

Jitendra Singh called it an irony that now that the people have voted (the Congress and the NC) out of power they are shedding crocodile tears over the neglect of the region while they are themselves to blame for this state of affairs.

Addressing a public rally at Doda, Dr Jitendra Singh recalled the sequence of events and said, ever since independence, there was not a single occasion when the MLAs or the MPs from this region did not find a strong position in the state cabinet or the union cabinet, but the apathy by these elected representatives is evident from the fact that they did not even attend to the development of their own native places.

Citing an example, he said, the first-ever post office and the first-ever branch of the State Bank of India was set up at Gandoh after 2014 and the first ever national project in Bhaderwah was set up by the Modi Government in the form of National Institute of High Altitude Medicine.

In a rebuff to the Opposition leaders who claim that all the development projects were initiated in this region before 2014, Dr Singh said, “We live in an evidence-based era when even before a leader finishes completing his speech, the common man listening to him tends to check the facts and figures on the Internet.“

He claimed while several new national-level development projects were initiated after 2014, many which had been stopped by the earlier governments during the tenure of earlier MPs and MLAs have been revived now.

Enumerating examples, Dr Jitendra Singh said the Government Medical College in Doda was set up during his Parliamentary term after 2014 and so also the Khilani Sudh Mahadev National Highway was started during his term.  Not only this, he recalled that the Ganpat bridge which had been abandoned unfinished by the earlier government and earlier elected representatives, was also completed during this term.

In nearby Kishtwar, Dr Jitendra Singh said not only a series of power projects were started in the last eight years including the 1000 MW Pakal Dul Project, 624 MW Kiru Project, 520 Kwar Project, 930 MW Kirthai Project, but also the 850 MW Ratle Project which had been stalled before 2014 has also been revived, as a result of which Kisthwar is going to turn into the biggest power hub of North India.

While the Congress and National Conference followed a policy of discrimination based on votebank, Dr Jitendra Singh said, after 2014, we have tried to fulfill the requirements of every region regardless of whether they voted for us or not in the last election.  A Degree College was started in Kastigarh, it was simultaneously sanctioned for Marmat from where the non-BJP parties received the maximum vote.