BHOPAL: With less than four months left for the next assembly elections, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan embarked on a month-long Vikas Parva (Development Festival) from the tribal-dominated West MP’s Dhar and Barwani district on Sunday.
The CM started the month-long festival by laying the foundation of the Minor Lift Irrigation project at Meghnad Ghat on the banks of river Narmada in Kukshi tehsil of Dhar district. The Rs 2,771-crore minor lift irrigation project, via an underground pipeline system, will render irrigation facilities to more than 75,000-hectare land owned by 1.25 lakh-plus farmers in the Dhar district. The project once completed will ensure irrigation facilities through sprinkler and drip systems under PM Narendra Modi’s One Drop More Crop vision.
The CM subsequently unveiled two minor irrigation projects in the Barwani district, including the Rs 1,173 crore project in Nagalwadi and the Rs 55 crore project in the Pati area of the west MP district. The twin micro-irrigation projects will usher adequate micro-irrigation facilities to hundreds of villages in Barwani and the neighbouring Khargone district.
Chouhan later carried out an impressive roadshow in Barwani town of Barwani district. Addressing the public meetings in Dhar and Barwani districts, the CM accused Congress of using abuses to address him. “The Congress people address me with a host of abuses, including Kans Mama and Shakuni Mama. Nowadays they’ve got a video made which talks about Ka Ba Ka Ba.”
Chouhan said while referring to Bhojpuri singer Neha Singh Rathore’s trending video targeting BJP rule in MP, which is being shared by the Congress leaders on social media platforms. “It’s because the Congress is unable to come to power due to me that its leaders are abusing me. Do my sisters here also think that I’m Kans or Shakuni Mama,” Chouhan said.
Cong regime stopped funds: CM
On a month-long ‘festival,’ CM Chouhan accused the erstwhile Kamal Nath-led 15-month Congress regime of stopping funds for various welfare schemes of his previous government, including the CM Kanya Vivah/Nikah Yojana, the Sambal Yojana and the scheme pertaining to distribution of laptops to meritorious students.