Chattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Tuesday responded to Union Minister Anurag Thakur’s remark on Rahul Gandhi, saying he should buy napkins as he would need then once the results of the Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections are declared.
The polling for the BJP-ruled hill state was conducted on November 12 and the counting of votes would take, along with that of poll-bound Gujarat, on December 8. Thakur, the Union minister for sports and youth affairs, had earlier questioned Rahul for keeping Himachal Pradesh away from his ongoing ‘Bharat Jodo’ campaign.
While Rahul’s sister and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra campaigned in Himachal ahead of the Assembly elections, the Congress Lok Sabha MP was conspicuous by his absence.
On the BJP’s decision not to repeat many sitting MLAs in Gujarat and bring in fresh faces instead, Baghel told ANI, “Even I have been telling my party MLAs in Chhattisgarh that they won’t get tickets for the next Assembly polls. Some raised a hue and cry over it and even tried to mobilise support. However, nothing is going to come out of it as I am determined not to give them tickets.”
On bringing petrol and diesel prices within the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Chhattisgarh chief minister said, “Firstly, petrol and diesel prices should be reduced to give the unreal public some respite. However, instead of reducing the prices, the central government has imposed a cess on petrol and diesel because of which states are not getting their right share of revenue from GST. If the fuel prices are reduced, everyone will be happy. However, what we are seeing instead is that the global crude rate is coming down but fuel prices in the country are going up.”