Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Former Himachal Pradesh chief minister and senior Congress leader Virbhadra Singh lost his temper and threatened media on Wednesday when he was questioned about charges that he faked income tax records.
According to reports, a visibly upset and embarrassed Singh threatened to break the cameras of mediapersons when asked to respond to charges of corruption levelled against him.
"I will break your cameras. Don't you have any work? The allegations are wrong and baseless," Singh said.
However, the Congress party later apologised for Singh’s erratic behavior.
The strange reaction from Singh came a day after BJP’s Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Tuesday demanded an investigation by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on allegations that the Congress veteran received kickbacks, and facilitated huge cash deposits in favour of his business partner Anand Chauhan.
Singh, an erstwhile ruler of Himachal Pradesh, has been accused by the BJP of allegedly receiving kickbacks to the tune of Rs 2.3 crore from Ispat Industries when he was Union Steel Minister between 2009 and 2010.
Jaitely further opined that in the last few years under the UPA-II regime, there has been unprecedented corruption, and added that the general public is concerned and affected by the LPG, diesel price hike, as also by the proposal to bring FDI in retail.
Referring to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her visits to poll-bound states in recent times, the senior BJP leader, while referring to the issue of corruption, said: “She should have seen who was sharing the stage with her, and then, she would not have been able to mention that word.”
Specifically referring to Virbhadra Singh, he said, “It is not merely a revenue issue, it is a corruption issue. The allegations against Virbhadra Sigh could be shameful for any political party. Someone who is a minister, Chief Minister must always be demonstrably more honest than others.”
“The issue is not whether the minister puts his initials down as VS or VBS - what we need to investigate is what those entries mean. It is a money trail - from Mumbai to Shimla. Unaccounted money finds itself in a ghost account and Virbhadra and family are beneficiaries,” he added.
He referred to Anand Chauhan as a former Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) agent based in Shimla, who had made huge sums of money during his association with Singh.
Jaitley also ruled out the possibility of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigating the payments, as it has a poor track record on this score.
With ANI Inputs
First Published: Wednesday, October 24, 2012, 10:56
