Who laid the foundation stone of Rohtang tunnel?

Shimla, Oct 13: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the Atal Tunnel at Rohtang at an altitude of above 3,000 metres in Himachal Pradesh. After the inauguration, he said the tunnel would provide new strength to the country's border infrastructure.

This tunnel is also important because it will increase India's strength along the Pakistan-China border. With its launch, the area of ​​Ladakh will remain fully connected throughout the year. It has been named 'Atal Rohtang Tunnel' in memory of former Prime Minister Bharat Ratna Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

While, the Himachal Congress alleged that the foundation stone laid by its national president Sonia Gandhi for the Rohtang tunnel a decade ago was removed before its inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 3.

In a letter to Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, state Congress president Kuldeep Singh Thakur said Gandhi had laid the foundation stone on June 28, 2010 in the presence of the then CM Prem Kumar Dhumal and Union minister Virbhadra Singh.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) aired surprise and shock at the Congress grabbing the entire credit for the Rohtang tunnel and pointed out that the foundation stone for the strategic project was laid by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee way back in 2002.

He pointed out that the Rohtang tunnel project was announced by Vajpayee in 2000 and the work on it, to be built by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), was later inaugurated by him on May 23, 2002.