BJP accuses ministers secretary of beating Delhi BJP councillors

Shimla, May 22 (UNI) The Himachal Pradesh unit of the BJP today accused the private secretary of state Industries Minister Kuldeep Kumar of allegedly beating its councillors from Delhi late last night.

Addressing a press conference here, state party president Jai Ram Thakur said the minister's private secretary Ram Rattan Verma and an Himachal Urban Development Authority (HIMUDA) Ramesh Sharma led a gang of Congress workers in beating Delhi BJP councilors Santosh Bharti and Inder Dev.

He said the councillors who were here to campaign for the party candidate in Patyog ward of Shimla Municipal Corporation.

''It is a result of sheer frustration before the defeat,'' he said and added that it was a ''shameful action'' by the Congress in a peaceful state like Himachal.

The party president, who was accompanied by a number of former cabinet ministers and senior BJP leaders, also apprehended fresh attacks on the party activists the night before the polling.

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who is desperate to win these elections by hook or crook, had visited almost every ward in an effort to boost the sagging morale of the party candidates.

Mr Thakur alleged that the CM was openly using the state government helicopter for campaigning in corporation and Lok Sabha by-polls from Hamirpur.

Alleging that the state police was openly conniving with the Congress in the local elections, he said an FIR against the people who attacked the BJP councillors was registered only after the state BJP leadership blocked the bypass road up to midnight last night.

''The culprits are yet to be arrested.'' UNI