Taking a strong note of the allegation made by chief minister’s media advisor Surendra Aggarwal, alluding to the swell of the corpus of a UK -based company of which the former chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna was a principal stake holder during his tenure as the CM, Bahuguna has served a defamation notice to the chief minister Harish Rawat and his media advisor Surendra Kumar on Thursday. Notably, Kumar leveled the allegation on Tuesday. Kumar said that while the capital of the company was mere 50000 pound in 2011 it shot up to 250 million pounds in 2013-the year Bahuguna was at the helm of the state.
The notice mentioned that on the instruction of the CM, his close aide Surendra Kumar had been making baseless allegations against him in malicious attempt to tarnish his public image.
He warned that unless the CM Rawat and his aide apologised he would lodge a criminal defamation case against them.
Bahuguna averred that neither he nor his any of his family members had promoted the foreign company concerned. “During my tenure as the chief minister, the company neither had made an investment in the state nor been given a contract by then Uttarakhand government. As far as the international Investigative journalist association (IIJA) as mentioned by Kumar is concerned it has not made any direct or indirect comment against me or my family,” he said.
Training his gun against Harish Rawat, he said his vindictive nature had forced as many as 10 Congress MlAs to leave the Congress. “Now, he is hell-bent on terrorising us by lodging concocted allegations against us through his cronies. We are sure he would get a befitting reply from the people of the state at the upcoming hustings,” the former CM said.