Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) national president, Amit Shah on Friday launched a scathing attack against Chief Minister (CM), Virbhadra Singh on corruption issue and blamed him for severely damaging Himachal’s reputation in the entire country.

He urged the people of Himachal Pradesh to throw out ‘corrupt Congress regime’ in the ensuing assembly polls and pave the way for change in the system.

Addressing a ‘Yuva Hunkar’ rally by BJP’s youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) at Kangra in HP, Shah was all praise for two former BJP chief ministers of HP, Shanta Kumar and Prem Kumar Dhumal.

“Shanta is known as ‘Paani Wala Mukhya Mantri’ (for providing drinking water to people) and Dhumal as ‘Sadak Wala Mukhyamantri’ (for providing road connectivity to people). However, people would remember Virbhadra as ‘Bhrastachar wala mukhyamatri’ (corrupt chief minister),” he referred.

Vouching for 50 plus Assembly seats in the state out of total 68, the BJP president said the people of HP should join BJP’s Hisab Mangey Himachal’ campaign against the Congress government in the run up to polls.

Shah said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vehicle of development could not enter HP as its path was obstructed by the Congress government here. “The government is not keen to utilise the money provided by Centre for political reasons as the credit would then go to the Centre,” he said.

He said the state was not able to prepare even the Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) for the national highways sanctioned by the Centre despite the latter having released Rs 268 Crore for the same.

He said the Union government had extended a help of Rs 1,15,846 Crore to HP in three years against Rs 44,235 Crore. He asked the CM to give an account where the additional Rs 71,000 Crore had gone. “I hope this has not gone into CM’s apple boxes,” he said.

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister from HP, JP Nadda credited Shah with making BJP the largest party of the world and said the BJP was emerging strong even in Jammu and Kashmir. He gave credit to Shah for BJP’s victories in the state, where the party earlier had little presence.

Nadda blamed HP government for delay in responding to the Central projects for HP and not utilising the Central funds properly.

Former CM, Shanta Kumar and Prem Kumar Dhumal referred to ‘Gudia case and custodial death’ as a blot on HP, which they said, was passing through a worse period under Virbahdra regime.