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PM has used only 7 per cent of MP Local Area Development Fund

50% of UP MPs, including Rajnath and Sonia, have not utilised the fund at all

Lucknow: They rave, rant and fire salvos at each other when it come to development but the shocking truth is that 49 out of the 80 MPs from Uttar Pradesh have not spent a single penny from the MP Local Area Development Fund.

According to sources, in the list of MPs who have not spent anything from the MPLAD funds, 43 belong to the BJP. Considering that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s biggest emphasis is on development, the laid back attitude of his party MPs in Uttar Pradesh is bound to jolt the BJP out of complacency.

To begin with the Prime Minister himself has utilised only 7.95 per cent of the money available to for the development of Varanasi which is his constituency and remaining amount of Rs 4.65 crore remains unutilised.

The MPs, in the past one year, have not bothered about development in their constituencies through this money and this vindicates the stand taken by the ruling Samajwadi Party that the BJP is not keen on the development of the state.

Prominent among those who have not used their funds include Union home minister Rajnath Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Union ministers Uma Bharti, Kalraj Misra, Manoj Sinha, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Dr Murli Manohar Joshi.

The Gandhi cousins — Mr Rahul Gandhi in Amethi and Mr Varun Gandhi in Sultanpur — fare better than their colleagues in Parliament. Mr Rahul Gandhi has spent 37.28 per cent of his funds in the past one year and Mr Varun Gandhi has also spent 37.11 per cent of the funds in his constituency.

A BJP spokesman, who did not wish to be named, defended party MPs by saying that many of them are first timers and are still learning about how the funds are to be spent. “As for the ministers not spending money in their constituency, most of them are busy with their official work but they do keep a tab on the development work in their areas,” he said.

( Source : deccan chronicle )
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