Two Himachal Pradesh ministers today lashed out at former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and his sons for levelling "cheap and baseless" allegations against Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his family members.
The Dhumals are indulging in "malicious propaganda and mudslinging" to divert public attention from their wrongdoings in the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA), Forest Minister Thakur Singh Bharmauri and Minister for Excise and Taxation Prakash Chaudhary said in a statement here.
"Dhumals made HPCA (led by Dhumal's elder son and BJP MP Anurag Thakur) a captive organisation by inducting life members with voting rights from neighbouring states and the then BJP government headed by Prem Kumar Dhumal leased out prime land to it," the statement reads.
The Dhumal family stood marginalised in the BJP after their misdeeds started coming to the fore, and now they were making personal attack and baseless allegations out of sheer frustration as they could foresee imminent defeat in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the ministers said.
They asked the Dhumals to explain what was wrong in taking loan by one individual from another, especially when the transactions were transparent, fair, clear and through bank account and properly reflected in the returns.
All such matters are dealt at appropriate levels by the appropriate authorities and young Dhumal (Arun) had no authority in the matter, they said.
They said that Vikramaditya Singh (Son of Virbhadra Singh) was an upcoming youth leader and was being deliberately targeted with an ulterior motive of causing harm to his campaign in the ongoing youth Congress elections.
It was strange that Dhumals got access to the income tax returns filed by Virbhadra and bank details of Vikramaditya, which were purely personal documents.
This affirms that the Dhumal government had been intruding into the privacy of people by indulging in phone-tapping and bugging.
Arun Dhumal yesterday alleged that Virbhadra Singh and his wife Pratibha had suppressed information about their assets in affidavits filed before the Election Commission.
