The BJP has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to order a CBI and Income Tax probe into allegations that Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh favoured a private power company for unsecured loan and stakes in the firm. Raising this issue, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley also sought the Chief Minister’s resignation and asked the Congress how it could allow such a leader to continue at the top post.
The company in question, M/s Venture Energy and Technology Pvt ltd, had been allotted a hydel-power project in June 2002, but defaulted in its execution. Then Government headed by Singh granted extension to the company, which could not meet the deadline for execution. When Singh returned as Chief Minister in September 2013, he once again gave another extension of 10 months to the same company.
“A quid pro quo was offered by the said company to Virbhadra Singh and his family around the same period,” Jaitley wrote in his letter to the PM on Sunday. Jaitley claimed promoter of the company, Vakamulla Chandersekhar had given unsecured loan of Rs 2.40 crore to Singh and of Rs 1.5 crore to his wife. “Contemporaneous documents indicate that Virbhadra Singh and his family had surplus amounts lying in their bank accounts. They did not need the loan,” Jaitley said, pointing out that it was curious that despite being in dire financial straits themselves the promoter extended such huge loan. Incidentally, the company has still not paid Rs 58.19 lakh in lieu of the 10 months extension.
Jaitley claimed that M/s Tarini Infrastructure ltd, another company promoted by Chandersekhar, has declared that the list of shareholder as on September 29, 2012 included CM’s wife Pratibha Singh, son Vikramaditya Singh and his daughter Aparajita Kumari. All three have 3,40,000 equity shares each of the company. Amit Pal Singh, OSD to the CM, also got 10,000 equity shares in the said company.
“The new documents reveal that a favour is shown to a private company which grants a loan to the CM and his wife. Additionally, in the group companies, his wife and two children became shareholder. There cannot be a stronger evidence of quid pro quo. All the above fact independent and collectively constitutes offences under the prevention of corruption act besides violations of various revenue laws,” Jaitley wrote to the PM.
The BJP leader also listed out two previous scandals in which the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister is facing probe. The BJP leader claimed this case was also a test for the Congress and its leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi. “Do they still feel angry on seeing these factsIJ This will show if their recent outbursts on corruption in Adarsh case was a put on...Was Rahul outburst on Adarsh a genuine reaction or was it a contrived angerIJ” he asked.