Speculation of truce put to rest

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, November 30

Speculation that hatchet between Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and Leader of Opposition PK Dhumal had been buried after their recent meeting in Shimla was put on the back burner today on the first day of winter session of the Assembly. Both the leaders today once again launched scathing attacks at each other.

The Chief Minister, while responding to a media query, said the BJP was afraid of him and that was why it was fabricating false cases against him. He said that any “Tom Dick and Harry would be acceptable to the BJP as Himachal CM but not him.”

In response to CM’s statement, Prem Kumar Dhumal said in the evening that it illustrated that Virbhadra Singh believed that besides him everybody in the Congress party in Himachal was Tom Dick and Harry.

Virbhadra Singh also said that the source of all the cases against him were Prem Kumar Dhumal and his son Anurag Thakur.

To this Dhumal said that corruption was the biggest issue for the state and the country and now that the CBI and the ED had registered cases it has been proven that the allegations against the CM had substance.

The CM also said Dhumal was forced to take up allegations against him due to pressure from the party and otherwise he had kept silent in the House.

To this, Dhumal said he and all the members of BJP in the House had signed the demand for adjournment motion on allegations of corruption against the CM. “I was the first person to sign it and so there was no question of my being under party pressure,” he said.

About the CM’s statement that he was silent in the House, Dhumal said, “We have many vocal leaders in the House like Rajeev Bindal, Ravinder Ravi and Randhir Sharma and they raised the issue of corruption well in the House. So there was no need for me to get vocal.”