BJP leader JP Nadda joined the league of his other partymen against HPCC president Virbhadra Singh and attacking him just before the assembly election. JP Nadda has leveled serious personal charges against Singh as he alleged him for polluting the healthy political environment in the State by spreading the stench of corruption in his every breath. He alleged that his family enjoys the dubious distinction of being the first to execute a benami land deal way back in 1972. Added to this is the fact that all this happened when Virbhadra Singh himself was a Congress MP with a Congress government in the State.
Nadda charged that Virbhadra family entered into a back-dated agreement with some Ajay Singh to thwart the transfer of land in excess of the limit prescribed under the then recently enacted Land Ceiling Act. The land was transferred in Singh’s name and the revenue record just said that his father’s name was not known and he was a resident of Shimla.
Alleging that it was Virbhadra family which pioneered the sale of Himachal to non-agriculturist non-Himachalis, Nadda challenged Virbhadra Singh to disclose the real identity of that “Ajay Singh” whose father’s name is “not known”. Such a dubious land transaction could not have been executed without the connivance of Virbhadra Singh and the then Congress government, he alleged.
Nadda said Virbhadra Singh claims to be a great benefactor of the people of the State, but he did everything to continue to hold illegally land beyond permissible limits through underhand means. BJP leader dared Singh to explain whether it was not a fact that a unit of land was kept in the name of his bed-ridden daughter and the same was transferred in the name of his son on the pretext that he was looking after her.
In his personal attack, Nadda alleged that after the demise of his mother, Virbhadra illegally got a share of his mother’s land transferred in his name in contravention of the land ceiling laws. When the fact of this violation of law by Virbhadra Singh came in the open, as chief minister he then stoutly denied the allegations and very boldly declared that he would retire from politics if it was proved that he held even an inch of land in excess of the permissible limit. But, later, he meekly approached the Revenue authorities to surrender the excess land.
BJP General Secretary further alleged that in 1984-85 the Himachal Pradesh government acquired Virbhadra Singh’s land for the construction of a bus stand at Rampur paying compensation at the rates then prevailing. But as Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh got the amount of compensation enhanced and derived an undue financial benefit exploiting his official position.
