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Charges baseless: Dhumal
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 7
The Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Mr Prem Kumar Dhumal, today asked his Punjab counterpart, Capt Amarinder Singh, to desist from the campaign of character assassination launched against him by the Congress on the eve of the assembly elections in the hill state.

“Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others”, said Mr Dhumal at a Meet the Press programme organised by the Chandigarh Press Club here. “Personal allegations being levelled against me in a series of advertisements being given in newspapers by the Congress at the behest of the Punjab Chief Minister are wrong and baseless. I strongly object to them. Incidentally, these advertisements do not carry any printline nor the name of the organisation or individual who has issued them. This shows that those who are behind these advertisements do not have the morale courage to own them. They have thus already lost the battle for truth”.

The Himachal Chief Minister said he and his party had so many things to say about the Punjab Chief Minister and other Punjab ministers but he did not want to descend to their level. “The wife of the Punjab Chief Minister, Mrs Parneet Kaur, MP, had illegally encroached upon a piece of land at Narkanda. She has now applied to the Himachal Government for its regularisation. But we are not raking up such issues. We are only focusing on development as the main issue in the Himachal elections”.

Mr Dhumal also said that the newspapers publishing such defamatory advertisements against him must ensure that they carried a printline and the name and address of the publishers as required by the law. “I don’t want that newspapers too should get embroiled in any litigation which may be initiated on this issue,” he said.

The Himachal Chief Minister said that the doubts sought to be cast on his integrity through advertisements would not cut much ice with the people of Himachal Pradesh who knew him much better than those in Punjab. “Punjab Congress men were able to mislead people of their state through such advertisements in last year’s assembly elections in Punjab. But they would not be able to mislead the people of Himachal Pradesh”.

As regards the allegations levelled in the advertisements of amassing property by him in Punjab, Mr Dhumal said some of the assets mentioned in the advertisements were created in the 80s when he was still a school-going kid. He was among the first politicians in Himachal Pradesh to supply a complete list of his assets and that of his close family relations to the Speaker of the State Assembly. Last year, he introduced a Bill in the assembly making it mandatory for legislators to declare their assets but this was referred to a select committee.

He said his son was an employee of Delhi Public School, Jalandhar. It was wrong to allege that he owned the school.

Mr Dhumal also said that although no alliance could be worked out with Himachal Vikas Parishad headed by the former Union Communications Minister, Mr Sukh Ram, he was grateful to the HVC supremo for the unstinted support extended to the BJP which enabled him to stay in office for five years.

Mr Dhumal said that strong, stable and clean administration provided by his government during the past five years had led to allround development in the state.