Shimla, May 18 -- Former chief minister and leader of the opposition, Jai Ram Thakur, criticised the Congress in the state, alleging that the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government has plunged the state into a severe financial emergency. Campaigning for the upcoming panchayat elections scheduled to be held in the state in three phases beginning May 26, Jai Ram said, "The central government has been consistently allocating adequate budgetary resources to the state without any political bias; however, the state government is completely reluctant to utilise these funds for actual implementation on the ground." "This government had ascended to power through trickery, relying solely on false guarantees; consequently, the public is no longer prepared to place even an iota of faith in any of their hollow assurances," Jai Ram said during the election campaign in favour of the BJP-backed candidate in his home constituency of Seraj. Health Minister Dr (Col) Dhani Ram Shandil and Panchayati Raj Minister Anirudh Singh, in a press statement, refuted the remark of Jai Ram and said that the present state government has fulfilled all the guarantees promised to the people. "In its very first cabinet meeting, the Congress government restored the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) for 1.36 lakh employees, fulfilling its first guarantee. Under the second guarantee, eligible women are being provided Rs.1,500 per month in a phased manner under the Indira Gandhi Pyari Behna Sukh Samman Nidhi Yojana," the ministers said in an official statement. District election officer (panchayat) and Shimla deputy commissioner, Anupam Kashyap, suspended assistant returning officer Rajneesh Chauhan with immediate effect on charges of serious negligence in the panchayat election process. According to the information, the action was taken after it was found that rules were disregarded during the allotment of election symbols in the gram panchayat Dalgaon, development block Rohru. During the inquiry, it was found that Chauhan, who serves as a group instructor at the government industrial training institute (ITI), Samarkot in Rohru, failed to allot election symbols in accordance with the guidelines. Kashyap said Chauhan has been suspended, and the BDO's office in Rohru has been designated as his headquarters during the period of suspension....