'land neither been grabbed by Dhumal nor Anurag'

Three senior BJP leaders and former Ministers — Jai Ram Thakur,  Mahender Singh and Thakur Gulab Singh on Tuesday said the allegation of `100 crore land grab scam against the former Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and HPCA president Anurag Thakur for leasing land for cricket stadium at Dharamsala only vindicated intellectual bankruptcy of Congress leaders. 

In a statement issued, they said that the land had neither been grabbed by Dhumal nor Anurag and there were dozen of instances when land had been leased on a nominal amount for a public cause and the same principle applied to the lease of Dharamsala Cricket Stadium.The BJP leaders said the bullish enmity and political jealousy of Virbhadra Singh against former Chief Minister was responsible for such baseless allegations because Congress which came to power in Himachal Pradesh accidently had nothing relevant to allege against the BJP or its leaders.

BJP leaders ridiculed Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh for making unfounded allegations against Dhumal and Anurag, forgetting that the allegations of serious corruption against Virbhadra Singh were pending in different courts.It was also pointed out by the BJP leaders that the UPA rule for decades in this country was a shameful era of scams and scandals when the Congress-led Government  refused to hold inquiry into them. Now, those very “gentlemen” were not allowing the Parliament to function.

“By building a world class cricket stadium at Dharamsala Anurag had brought Himachal Pradesh on the world map of Cricket. This was not digestible to the HP Chief Minister and his colleague,” they lamented.The three BJP leaders advised Virbhadra Singh to concentrate on the development works, which had come to a grinding halt, without squandering time in futile exercise of settling scores with his political enemies and detractors. They asked him to pay heed to the advice of his senior colleague, GS Bali, Transport Minister, to give up animosity with Prem Kumar, Dhumal.