Shimla:
Senior Congressman and former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today threatened to "break cameras" when media persons questioned him about the latest set of corruption allegations against him. His party, the Congress, later apologised for his comments.
"I'll break your cameras,
aur koi kaam nahi hai (don't you have any other work?)" a visibly irked Mr Singh said in Aani in Himachal Pradesh when he was questioned about allegations that he had faked income tax records.
Hours later, addressing a press conference in Shimla, Mr Singh apologised. "I am sorry. I did not mean to offend anyone," he said.
"I respect the media, they are doing their job... I strongly deny the allegations levelled against me. I am a tax payer, I have never evaded taxes. The BJP is losing ground in polls, so they are levelling allegations. I will take legal action and file defamation case," said Mr Singh.
The BJP has accused Mr Singh, who resigned in June this year as the UPA's Steel Minister, of corruption, forgery, money laundering and faking income tax records. It has also demanded that a special investigation team (SIT) investigate the allegations, on the grounds that it doesn't "trust the CBI".
Slamming Mr Singh, BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said he must answer all questions. "Instead of attacking the messenger, he should concentrate on the message. The information on corruption and money laundering is out in the open. The PM had said that money doesn't grow on trees, but Virbhadra Singh has proved that money grows on trees. He cannot escape by attacking the media. He is answerable and has to answer to all questions," he said.
But Congress spokesperson Sandeep Dixit defended Mr Singh and blamed the "unfortunate" incident on "pressure" due to upcoming elections in Himachal Pradesh. "If anyone is hurt, we apologise. We do not know the context behind the incident. Sometimes in the midst of an election campaign, one gets angry and upset. Such things happen under mental or physical pressure. It is unfortunate. Virbhadra Singh is a senior leader," he said.
Earlier this month, NDTV reported that records maintained by a steel company showed that it had made payments in cash to members of different government departments. The documents, seized in an income tax raid in 2009 from the Delhi office of Ispat Industries Limited (IIL), showed that Rs 2.8 crore had been paid to a "VBS." The steel minister at the time was Virbhadra Singh. He has however denied receiving any payments directly or otherwise from IIL, which was owned by the brothers of steel tycoon Laxmi Mittal.
He says the documents and the BJP's charges are a political conspiracy by the party to target him ahead of the elections in Himachal Pradesh, scheduled for next month. His party, the Congress, says that entries in a diary are not evidence of a swindle and do not merit an investigation.
But the BJP's Arun Jaitley disagrees. He says documents show that the alleged payments by Ispat were laundered for Mr Singh by an aide named Anand Chauhan.
He says that tax officials in Shimla were alerted to a new bank account opened by an LIC agent named Anand Chauhan. He deposited large amounts in this account regularly, then issued cheques against this account to buy insurance policies in the names of four different people. Those beneficiaries, Mr Jaitley says, were Mr Singh, his wife and their two children. Six crores was transacted like this, Mr Jaitley alleged. "Unaccounted money goes into a ghost account opened by Anant Chauhan, and Sri Virbhadra Singh and his family become beneficiaries," he claimed.
The BJP alleges that after he was alerted to his aide's account being monitored, Mr Singh revised his tax returns for the last three years to show a substantial income from agriculture. His new returns showed Rs 6 crore being earned through the lease of his apple orchards.
"This is a case of bribery, conversion of bribe money through money-laundering into real income, forgery by back-dating an agreement," Mr Jaitley said.
The documents for Ispat Industries Limited grabbed during income tax raids show Rs. 35,000 listed as payments for the CBI and Enforcement Directorate staff.
Virbhadra Singh has repeatedly brushed aside these allegations against him as "false and fabricated". He has also threatened action against those behind what he calls a "malicious" campaign ahead of Himachal assembly polls. "The information carried out by a section of the media is factually incorrect and details are being put out to create confusion in the public, and even divert my attention from the election campaign," he said yesterday.
(
With Inputs from PTI)