Actor-MP Kangana Ranaut on Tuesday visited disaster-hit Samej in this district and accused the state government of doing “nothing” to help the victims.
‘Yeh dil dehla deni wali trasadi hai’ (it is a heart-wrenching tragedy). People have lost all their family members, including children. They are terrified and in trauma. I would request the state government to provide immediate relief (financial assistance) to the affected families,” Ranaut, who interacted with the flash flood victims in Samej in Rampur subdivision, said.
The BJP MP from Mandi also demanded a special inquiry into allocation of funds by the Congress-led Himachal Pradesh government to the flood-affected families last year.
Himachal Pradesh has been pummelled by heavy rains for almost a week. Fourteen bodies have been recovered so far and 40 people are still missing after flash floods triggered by cloudbursts hit Kullu’s Nirmand, Sainj and Malana, Mandi’s Padhar and Shimla’s Rampur subdivision on the night of July 31, officials said.
“Malana in Kullu district has been disconnected. The villagers are themselves making the bridge,” Ranaut said.
She accused the state government of doing “nothing” to help the affected people in Samej village, where over 30 people are missing.
“I cannot see anything being done by the state government. Not a single thing has been done here by ministers which is inhuman,” the BJP leader alleged.
Samej village, about 148 km from here, has been worst hit in the flash floods. Rampur, Kullu and Mandi are under the Mandi parliamentary constituency from where Ranaut was elected in the recently held Lok Sabha polls.
“I have come as a representative of the Union government. The central government will provide funds to help the flood-affected people but we all know that financial assistance was also given last year after the monsoon disaster. These funds go to the state government and are distributed by them,” she said.
“No one knows what happened to those funds. The Union finance minister, during her recent budget speech, also assured assistance to Himachal Pradesh but the funds would come through the ‘ditch’ (khada) created by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu. Only God knows if the money will be distributed or not among the affected families,” the BJP MP said.
“Himachal has been facing disasters ever since the Congress came to power in the state,” she said, claiming the people affected by last year’s disaster are still waiting for the promised Rs 7 lakh by CM Sukhu.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had provided Rs 1,800 crore package to the state after the disaster last year, Ranaut added.
According to the officials, 410 rescuers from the Army, NDRF, SDRF, ITBP, CISF, Himachal Pradesh Police and home guards are involved in the search operation, which has been intensified with additional machinery, sniffer dog squads, drones and other equipment.
The hill state has suffered a loss of Rs 684 crore since the onset of the monsoon on June 27 until August 5. Eighty-seven people have lost their lives in rain-related incidents, according to the state emergency operation centre.