BJP to rid the state of corruption ; Khanduri

Dehradun, Jan 15 (UNI) Bharatiya Janata Party will remove corruption and provide good governance in Uttarakhand, BJP MP and State Election Managing Committee Chairman Major General (Retd) B C Khanduri said here today.

''Our first priority is to bring the administrative system back to normal and provide a model government to the people of Uttarakhand,'' Maj Gen Khanduri told reporters.

He said the BJP government would probe corruption cases that had surfaced during the Congress regime and action will be taken against those found guilty, irrespective of their political affliations.

Gen Khanduri asserted that the BJP will make Uttarakhand a developed state in five years.

Dodging query on the the probability of his being chosen as the Chief Minister in case the BJP came to power, he said it was the High Command's prerogative. ''I am not looking at myself as a Chief Minister. Presently I am engrossed in my work as the Chairman of the State Election Managing committee,'' he said.

Asked whether he would contest the assembly elections, Maj Gen Khanduri said the party High Command would decide. ''I am a soldier and in habit of only taking orders,'' he said and added candidates for the assembly election were yet to be finalised by the Central Parliamentary Board.

Lashing out at the Congress government in the state, the MP said the government has been a 'failure' and added it had taken the state to doom by shattering the dreams of people and the concept on which it was formed.

''They have no moral right to be in power,'' he said, adding the Congress has pushed the state into a debt of Rs 16,000 crore.

Maj Gen Khanduri, a former Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, said the Congress government, to cover up their 'failures', was now making false announcements. ''Under the Congress government, only 101 km road was constructed in three-and-a-half-years and now it is claiming to have constructed 444 km long road in just one-and-a-half- year,'' he added.

He said the huge public response to the BJP 'Satta Parivartan Yatra' rightly indicated that people in the state were looking for a change in government.

UNI