Under attack from BJP over alleged corruption, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh on Monday asked state BJP leader Prem Kumar Dhumal to go to the Lokayukta to make whatever charges he wanted against him or anybody else, saying, “We will face the consequences there.”
“If he (Dhumal) has anything to say against me, as I said earlier also, he should go to the Lokayukta,” Mr. Singh told reporters here.
Noting that Himachal Pradesh was one of those states where Lokayukta was set up long back, the Chief Minister said, “During my tenure and at present, we have an eminent Lokayukta who is a retired judge of the Supreme Court.
“Let him (Dhumal) go there make whatever charges he wants to make against me or anybody else and we will face the consequences there rather than running state to state, house to house. This is not going to serve any purpose.”
BJP had on Sunday questioned the “silence” of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi over corruption allegations against Mr. Singh and dared the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister to agree to a CBI probe into the charges which he has dubbed as politically motivated.
“The Congress Party and Virbhadra Singh have decided to brazen out the allegations of corruption. Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi will hide behind silence,” Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley had said on his blog.
Hitting back, Mr. Singh had said that both Mr. Jaitley and former chief minister Dhumal had “deliberately suppressed relevant facts” in their press conferences to suit their “ulterior political motive.”
“They have made selective opportunist disclosures and tried to mislead by twisting and concealing vital facts,” Singh had said dismissing the allegations levelled against him by them as being “false, frivolous and fabricated.”
“The accusations are preposterous and politically motivated,” Mr. Singh had said.
