The Bharatiya Janata Party’s national legal cell in-charge and former MP, Satpal Jain, on Friday alleged that Himachal Pradesh Congress president Virbhadra Singh’s income had shown a massive variation in the past three years without Mr. Singh citing any reasons — either for its steep rise or sharp decline.
Addressing journalists here, he said Mr. Singh had, in his affidavit filed before the returning officer for the 2009 elections, declared an income of Rs. 4,30,633. But his income tax returns for 2012 revealed an income of Rs. 2,21,35000.
Interestingly in his declaration for the coming Assembly elections, he mentioned an income of just Rs. 18, 66,089 on October 17, 2012 in the affidavit filed before the returning officer.
The BJP leader has demanded an inquiry by a Special Investigation Team into Mr. Singh’s latest affidavit as was done in the case of Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan.
EC must act suo motu
“The BJP as well as the general public now expects the Election Commission to take suo motu action against Mr. Singh for forging his income returns before the returning officer or else such provisions would become meaningless in future,” Mr. Jain pointed out.
He said his party had already demanded a SIT probe into the charges of filing revised IT returns and the corroborating evidence of Ispat payoffs to Mr. Singh. Mr. Jain, who expressed surprise at the threats issued by Mr. Singh to BJP leaders and others, said the Congress leader should himself come clean on a series of charges against him.
Mr. Singh also made accusations against Congress leaders Kaul Singh Thakur, Major Vijai Mankotia and Shanta Kumar and filed defamation suits against them as they had demanded a probe against him in various corruption cases, he added.
Meanwhile, a BJP spokesman disclosed that party president Nitin Gadkari would address rallies on Saturday in Rekong Peo in Kinnaur and Nerwa-Chopal in Shimla district.
Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj will address rallies in Palampur in Kangra and Rajgarh in Sirmaur district.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders Prakash Karat and Sitaram Yechury will address meetings in Shimla and Theog, according to the CPI (M) office. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address a rally in support of the Congress candidate for Una on October 28.
