The Congress on Sunday cried foul over the manner in which the BJP-led NDA government had "ignored" the requirements of Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh while allocating funds in the budget to states that have had to reckon with the devastation caused by floods.

Flagging Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at Saturday’s Niti Aayog meeting that a “Viksit Bharat” (developed India) depends on “viksit states”, Congress communications in-charge Jairam Ramesh said on X: “If only he put the taxpayer’s money where his mouth is! After the disastrous floods of 2023, the Government of Himachal Pradesh repeatedly demanded that the Union Government declare the floods a national calamity — a plea which the Finance Minister repeatedly rejected. Now, in her Budget Speech, when allocating funds for irrigation and flood mitigation, the Finance Minister has provided a vivid illustration of the double standards at work in the non-biological PM’s Government.”

To drive home his point, Ramesh posted relevant extracts from finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s speech, highlighting the allocations to the BJP and ally-ruled states — Bihar, Assam, Uttarakhand and Sikkim — as opposed to what was said in response to Congress-ruled Himachal Pradesh’s demand.

“Basically, what the FM has said is that BJP-ruled states will get financial assistance in the form of grants. When it comes to INC-governed Himachal Pradesh, however, the assistance will be ‘arranged through multilateral development assistance’, i.e., loans that it will have to repay. Himachal Pradesh — which is historically a fiscally challenged state due to its remote geography and challenging terrain — will be burdened with more loans. This is nothing but revenge on the people who did NOT vote for the BJP in assembly elections,” Ramesh underscored.

While Himachal Pradesh voted en bloc for the BJP in the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, voters in the state — which had opted for the Congress in the Assembly elections in 2022 — put paid to the saffron party’s efforts to change the verdict through defections earlier this year. In two rounds of by-elections held over the past two months to Assembly seats that fell vacant because of this attempted "Operation Lotus", Himachal voters opted for the Congress in most segments; securing the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government.