By: Kishori Lal
Mandi: Carrying forward the war of words, Union steel minister Virbhadra Singh today came down heavily on Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal for “perpetrating atrocities on Congress workers by framing them in false and fabricated cases”. Calling the government as “government of the BJP, by the BJP and for the BJP”, he alleged that the government was working totally in a partisan manner, flouting all democratic traditions and norms.
He alleged that honest and impartial government employees were being subjected to harassment and were being forced to follow illegal verbal orders of the BJP leaders. “Consequently, a large section of the employees had raised a demand for the setting up of a special tribunal for probing the conduct of such employees who were blindly following the verbal orders of the BJP leaders throwing all rules, regulations and norms to the wind,” he claimed.
“On the other hand, some tainted employees were working as stooges of the BJP and were abusing their powers against the Congress workers,” he claimed. Referring to the infamous CD scam, he wondered why the Chief Minister did not get the three CDs against him examined in the forensic labs as was done in his case.
He described the closure of many schools in the remote backward areas as “unjust and criminal” act against the destitute who would be deprived of basic education. He expressed shock that government was planning to close 850 more schools in the remote areas of the state under the pretext of lesser number of students.
Virbhdra Singh said permission granted for opening of dozens of universities in the state was another big scam as evident from the terms and conditions of the lease of land. He agreed to the suggestion of a reporter that the land use of universities should not be changed and on the closure of any university the land should vested in the government.
