The age old rivalry between Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and senior Congress leader Major Vijay Singh Mankotia has intensified again. A day after he was ousted from the Vice-chairman’s post of State Tourism Development Board, Maj. Mankotia, on Friday, sought AICC’s (All India Congress Committee) intervention for Virbhadra Singh’s removal from Chief Minister’s post.
Addressing a press conference in Shimla, Maj. Mankotia came out vociferously against Singh and said that he be removed from the post of Chief Minister for public welfare.
Accusing Singh of misusing his official position to defend himself from the CBI and ED cases registered at New Delhi, Maj. Mankotia said that the registration of cases of corruption against the chief minister had been damaging the image of Congress.
He said Virbhadra Singh had been sticking to his post, despite the fact that the investigating agencies had gathered credible evidence against him and the court refused to give any relief to him and his family.
Maj. Mankotia said that the arrest of Joint Director of Industries department and his disclosures about the involvement of CM office, his family members and cabinet colleagues, in corruption was not a secret to anyone in the state.
Accusing Singh of backstabbing Congress party, Maj. Mankotia said that he had met Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leaders Sharad Pawar and Prafful Patel and had blackmailed Congress high command for grabbing post of CM and State Congress President.
He said that there were a lot of leaders in Congress, who could be the face of the party and be elevated to the post of Chief Minister. He said that Congress lost all the four lok Sabha seats in 2014 general elections in the state and his wife Pratibha Singh’s defeat by a record margin of 1.30 lac votes was an evidence that the people of the state were feeling ditched by CM and his family.
Rebuffing the Chief Minister for his alleged demand of removal of Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu from the post of State party president, Mankotia said that he had been trying to pass the buck of party’s failures in the state to Sukhu, while his deeds were actually responsible for party’s poor performance in by-polls and recently concluded Shimla MC polls.
Responding to a query on his removal from Tourism Development Board, Maj. Mankotia said that he never begged for the post.
The resurfacing of rivalry comes as a setback to the Congress ahead of the Assembly polls later this year as the party is already facing anti-incumbency. The party had a temporary relief with the ironing out of differences between Virbhadra Singh and state party president Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu just before the Shimla MC polls, but the latest outburst by Mankotia has once again brought to the fore the issue of strife within the Congress party.
This is not the first time Mankotia and Virbhadra Singh are at loggerheads. Mankotia had created major trouble for Virbhadra Singh during the 2007 assembly polls by coming out with a CD, in which Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife Pratibha Singh were allegedly discussing a deal with an officer. The CD issue had become a major nuisance for Congress as the main rival party BJP had got a poll issue then,