A day after the newly elected Congress government expressed its intent to reinstall Sonia Gandhi’s “missing” foundation stone plaque at the Atal Tunnel in Rohtang, the BJP on Tuesday said it would take to the streets if Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s plaque was removed.
BJP’s chief spokesperson and Naina Devi legislator Randhir Sharma said that the central government deserved credit for constructing the world’s longest highway tunnel above 10,000 feet, which connects Manali with Leh. “We would like to remind the Congress that Sonia Gandhi had merely performed the bhoomi poojan, while the tunnel was built by the central government and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Our party will be forced to take to the streets if the Prime Minister’s plaque is removed,” he said.
Responding to the BJP, chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu said that they neither wanted to change the name of the tunnel nor remove the BJP’s foundation stone plaques. “We just want the plaques of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi, then Union minister Virbhadra Singh, then chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal, and then defence minister AK Antony to be reinstalled with immediate effect,” he said.
After assuming office on Monday, Sukhu had said that the state government would take up the matter of restoring the foundation stone plaque laid by Sonia Gandhi in capacity of chairperson of the National Advisory Council on June 28, 2010. He had called the plaque going missing, “an insult to democracy.”
{{/usCountry}}After assuming office on Monday, Sukhu had said that the state government would take up the matter of restoring the foundation stone plaque laid by Sonia Gandhi in capacity of chairperson of the National Advisory Council on June 28, 2010. He had called the plaque going missing, “an insult to democracy.”
{{/usCountry}}Earlier, the Congress had accused PM Modi of misleading the country about the construction of the ₹3,200-crore Rohtang Tunnel, which was later rechristened as Atal Tunnel. A statement issued by Pradesh Congress Committee chief Pratibha Singh had said that the Congress was wrongly taking credit for building the tunnel and had sought restoration of Sonia Gandhi’s foundation stone plaque. It had also released photographs of the foundation stone laying ceremony, in which Virbhadra Singh and Dhumal were also visible.
The credit war had erupted ahead of the Mandi Lok Sabha bypolls. After former state Congress chief Kuldeep Singh Rathore had alleged that the plaque had gone missing, the Kullu police had clarified that the plaque was in the safe custody of the agency that had executed the construction work. The Lahaul and Spiti district Congress committee had also registered a police complaint in the matter.
Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, after whom the tunnel has been named, had announced the project during a public meeting at Lahaul-Spiti’s Keylong in June 2000. He had laid the foundation stone for an approach road to the tunnel in 2002. Eventually, PM Modi had inaugurated the tunnel on October 3, 2020.