A day after the state vigilance and anti-corruption bureau sought the nod of the government to prosecute former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and his parliamentarian son Anurag Thakur in the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) irregularities case, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Thursday accused the state government of "resorting to vendetta politics".
In statement issued here, BJP spokesman Ganesh Dutt said the Congress government was using public agencies, including the vigilance bureau, to "harass political opponents" ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. "The Congress government always starts propaganda by framing false cases against the BJP leaders," he alleged.
"The Congress government has deployed the entire vigilance department to book Dhumal and his family in fabricated cases. The vigilance department is also divided on the issue of misuse of government machinery," he alleged.
Dutt added that some senior vigilance officials were not in favour of misuse of the bureau, while some officials were "over-active" in trying to implicate BJP leaders falsely on chief minister Virbhadra Singh's insistence. "Those helping the government to frame false cases will also have to face the consequences," he said.
The spokesman claimed that the BJP was always in favour of transparent governance and Virbhadra targeting not only Dhumal, but also those officials who were in CM office during the BJP regime, breaking the morale of the bureaucracy. He added that the state government was trying to create hurdles in the grant of privileges to the retired employees who had worked in CM office during the BJP regime.
{{/usCountry}}The spokesman claimed that the BJP was always in favour of transparent governance and Virbhadra targeting not only Dhumal, but also those officials who were in CM office during the BJP regime, breaking the morale of the bureaucracy. He added that the state government was trying to create hurdles in the grant of privileges to the retired employees who had worked in CM office during the BJP regime.
{{/usCountry}}"The BJP has asked the government and some 'blue-eyed' officials of the CM to work with patience till the Lok Sabha elections and stop the politics of vendetta and mudslinging against BJP leaders," he said, adding that the government worked in continuity and policies were often changed with the decisions of the successive governments, but to target any specific officials was not justified.