BJP Spokesperson Ajay Rana Slams Himachal Government for Spending Rs 2.34 Crore on ‘National Herald’ Advertisements.

Shimla:

BJP state spokesperson Ajay Rana has launched a sharp attack on the state government, questioning its decision to allocate Rs 2.34 crore in advertisements to the weekly newspaper National Herald, which he alleged is not even read in the state.

Rana questioned the utility of spending public funds on a newspaper “owned by the Nehru-Gandhi family” and claimed that it neither features content relevant to Himachal Pradesh nor is circulated or sold widely in the state. “How many homes in Himachal actually receive the National Herald weekly paper?” he asked, asserting that no local journalists contribute to it and the public has no interest in reading it.

He further alleged that the newspaper has been under investigation in the past, and questioned the ethics of providing government advertisements to such a publication.

Responding to the Congress’s defense that the previous BJP government also gave advertisements to publications like Matr Vandana, Panchjanya, and ABVP’s student magazine Student Udgosh, Rana said, “There’s no investigation pending against these magazines. Their content is rooted in Himachal’s issues, and they are actually read by the public.”

Rana also accused Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu’s media advisor, Naresh Chauhan, of lacking proper knowledge. “You cannot compare National Herald—a publication facing serious allegations—with nationalist magazines that are read by the common people and intellectuals alike,” he said.

He claimed that this move by the Congress government is nothing but “distribution of favours to their close associates” and alleged that the Sukhu government is increasingly becoming known as a “government of friends.”

“This must stop. It is the public’s tax money, not personal property to be handed out to allies,” Rana concluded.