New Delhi, Aug. 2: The Congress today alleged that former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal of the BJP had misused his office and violated rules to help son Anurag Thakur treat public property as personal.
Former Union minister Jairam Ramesh released a set of documents at a news conference alleging that Anurag, who heads the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA), received help from his chief minister father over a lease deed that caused a huge loss to the exchequer.
Ramesh also accused Anurag of misusing a plot procured for a cricket stadium in Dharamshala for commercial purposes, such as running a hotel.
Anurag, a BJP parliamentarian and a Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary, denied the charges. He said that whatever his father had done was for the state cricket body and not for an individual.
The controversy is not new. Current chief minister Virbhadra Singh of the Congress has been fighting the state BJP over it for several years. But the Congress is now projecting the controversy as a huge scam to try and target the Narendra Modi government.
Apart from assailing foreign minister Sushma Swaraj over the Lalit Modi controversy, the Congress had been gunning for three BJP chief ministers in Vasundhara Raje (Rajasthan), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh) and Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) over alleged corruption. It has added Dhumal to the list.
Ramesh presented the latest allegations as a " baap-beta (father-son) scam" after the "maa-beta (mother-son) scam" involving accusations that Vasundhara and son Dushyant Singh colluded with Lalit Modi to grab government property.
"It's a case of usurping public property and duping of the public exchequer," Ramesh said.
"Dhumal was chief minister and also a member of the HPCA, a society under the Societies Registration Act, and proceeded to grant and transfer virtual ownership of nearly 16 acres of prime land to HPCA at Re 1 per month for a period of 99 years. Dhumal transferred this land in 48 hours without disclosing on the file the fact of his own membership and the relationship with Thakur."
Ramesh added: "Under rule 8(i) of the Himachal Pradesh Lease Rules, 1993, land could be leased only at 18 per cent of the latest highest market value of the land. Even measured at collector rate, Rs 94,32,000 per annum is reflected in the valuation report of the tehsildar, Dharamshala, as the amount to be paid to the government. Despite this, Dhumal presided over the cabinet on 27.05.2002 and transferred this land at Re 1 per month for 99 years to a society headed by his son."
Ramesh alleged that the finance department had rejected the Re 1 deal.
He said: "Then Thakur wrote to his father for conversion of land use to commercial with permission to construct a revolving restaurant and a club. Dhumal granted permission without referring the matter to the cabinet."
Ramesh added: "The HPCA constructed a hotel and spa on this land and then handed it over to a private company."
He said this company was earning yearly profits of "Rs 90 lakh to Rs 1.25 crore" from the hotel "by paying the government Re 1 per month".
Ramesh released documents to claim that Anurag had registered a Section 25 company in Kanpur under the name "Himalayan Players Cricket Association", which has the same abbreviated form as the state cricket body, which is a society.
"So much so, all officer-bearers and members of the Himalayan Players Cricket Association and the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association are identical," he said.
Ramesh alleged that Anurag later changed the company's name to Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association.
"By doing so, a Section 25 company and the original society have the same name, i.e. HPCA, as also the same office-bearers and members," Ramesh said. "All this has been done with a view to ensure complete unaccountability and total ownership of public land allotted for 99 years at a pittance of Re 1 per month. Intent to defraud is, thus, writ large."
