Industry minister denies BJP's allegations

Shimla, Mar 6 (UNI) Himachal Pradesh's Industries Minister Kuldeep Kumar today denied all the charges leveled against him by the state unit of the BJP in a charge sheet that it submitted to the Governor yesterday.

''It is a political conspiracy to malign me and cast aspersions on my political career and nothing more,'' he said, in a release here.

Mr Kumar said no ITI college was registered in his or his family's name as charged by the BJP. The ITI was being run by a Gagret-based social organisation, which was into social service for the last 10 to 12 years and he had nothing to do with it.

Rubbishing the BJP's claim that he got allotted a petrol pump to his family by using his political influence, he said this was not true as the oil companies were now allotting petrol pumps to people on demand and not on influence.

Taking a dig at former chief minister P K Dhumal, whose son had been allotted a petrol pump at Jalandhar by the previous NDA government, the industries minister said that he could very well take over his petrol station at Una or exchange it with his.

Mr Kumar also denied any irregularity in the payment of his mobile bills by the General Industries Corporation, saying that the board of directors of the company cleared his bills, as he was its chairman.

He reiterated that the charges leveled against him by the BJP were ''baseless, concocted and far from reality and was an attempt to malign him.'' UNI AS DP VD BS1727