Himachal BJP’s dairy protest echoes unmet assurances

In the frigid session of the Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly’s third day, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) staged a peculiar demonstration. BJP legislators arrived at the assembly carrying containers of milk and sold milk from cows and buffaloes. Before coming into power, the Congress had promised to buy cow’s milk at Rs 80 per litre and buffalo’s milk at Rs 100 per litre. BJP legislators, within the assembly premises, sold cow and buffalo milk, reminding the government of the guarantee.

Opposition leader Jairam Thakur stated that before coming to power, Congress had made ten assurances to the public. Today, BJP legislators have arrived for the third assurance reminder. He mentioned that Congress had promised farmers to purchase cow’s milk at Rs 80 per litre and buffalo’s milk at Rs 100 per litre, but that did not happen. Thakur pointed out that the containers brought in opposition contain the price per kilogram of milk, as the Chief Minister prefers to buy milk by the kilogram instead of the litre. BJP doesn’t want their argument to differ from the truth.

It’s noteworthy that in Himachal Pradesh, on December 11, Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukkhu’s government completed one year. During this period, the government organized a state-level program in Dharamshala. In this statewide program, Chief Minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukkhu announced that the government would purchase milk at Rs 37 per litre instead of Rs 31 per litre. However, BJP questions why, when the promise was made for Rs 80 per litre and Rs 100 per litre, now there’s only a six-rupee increase, questioning the government’s discrepancy with the farmers.