CM Sukhu makes ‘contractor’ jibe at BJP bypoll candidate, invites questions about own govt’s tenders

IN AN unusual twist in the coming Himachal Pradesh Assembly bypolls, Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu has accused Ashish Sharma, the BJP candidate from Hamirpur, of getting an undue share of government contacts. Most of these, he goes on to say, have been during his own 14-month tenure in power.

On Tuesday, Sukhu said: “Ashish Sharma is a contractor and not a public servant. He did works worth Rs 50 crore under the previous BJP government but took contracts worth Rs 135 crore during the Congress government. Being an MLA, he kept asking me for tenders and telling people that the CM was not doing any work. He is a greedy and arrogant person with bad intentions, which is why he sold himself to the BJP.”

Denying the charges, Sharma said, “During campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections in Hamirpur, CM Sukhu had claimed he had given Rs 100 crore contracts to me. In a month, Sukhu has increased the tender amount to Rs 135 crore. I am sure when Sukhu comes to Hamirpur in the next couple of days, he will not hesitate to increase the tender amounts to Rs 500 crore. Someone should ask him how he awarded the tenders to me when the Model Code of Conduct was already imposed. And if this is a fact, he is the CM and he should say this with the list of tenders in his hands.”

In a Facebook Live, Sharma also read a list of the construction projects he had proposed to Sukhu, which he claimed were turned down. These amounted to Rs 11 crore, he said.

The BJP co-incharge of the Hamirpur bypoll and its Bilaspur (Sadar) MLA, Trilok Jamwal, has asked if Sukhu is alleging irregularities in awarding of contracts under his own government. “If Sukhu says that during the Congress tenure, Ashish Sharma took contracts worth crores from him, then should