BJP defending misdeeds of HPCA: Cong

Hitting out at BJP over the controversial Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA), Congress today alleged that the way it was "defending misdeeds" of the cricket body, it appeared there was something fishy in the matter.
"The manner in which BJP is going all out to defend the misdeeds of HPCA, it appears that there is something fishy in the matter," Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee (HPCC) president Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said while talking to reporters here.
Sukhu asked why BJP was defending HPCA, which is a private company.
"The opposition BJP skipped the entire budget session of state assembly to protest on the issue of HPCA inquiry and did not realise that the prime duty of the MLAs is to raise public issues inside and outside the Assembly," he said.

Asking BJP to come clean on "serious charges of involvement in the HPCA", he said, "Is it not true that the HPCA was registered as a society when it got land on lease from the government and how could it convert itself into a company and transfer the entire government land (taken on lease) in the name of the company, that too without the knowledge of the government and approval of the Registrar (Societies).
"There is no provision for giving government land to a private company," he said.

Sukhu said Congress would raise this issue during polls in Hamirpur.
"We will question the sitting BJP MP Anurag Thakur (who heads HPCA) if the association was to be converted into a company and had to run a hotel, why did it not buy land like any other private company.

"Is it also not dubious that the HPCA first registered itself as a company in Kanpur and then in Chandigarh.
And out of 25 life members in HPCA, 21 are from one family," he said.
Sukkhu took strong exception to BJP questioning the Governor for granting prosecution sanction against former BJP Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal.
"The state government had been inquiring into the irregularities in HPCA for the past one year and approached the Governor for prosecution sanction on the basis of facts gathered by the investigating agencies," he said.
Targeting Thakur, he said the BJP MP remained busy in Mumbai and Dubai and cared little for the Hamirpur constituency during the past five years.

Sukhu denied any rift in the party over the candidature of Rajinder Rana from Hamirpur and said that that the entire party is backing him.