Kalia drops ‘letter bomb’ on senior BJP leader Shanta
Monday, 22/08/2016
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=163332&boxid=62165&uid=&dat=2016-08-22
Jalandhar : BJP Punjab’s senior leader and Jalandhar Central MLA Manoranjan Kalia on Sunday shot off a letter bomb to former BJP Punjab Affairs in-charge Shanta Kumar after he welcomed the quashing of 18 Chief Parliamentary Secretaries (CPSs) in Punjab recently.
Kalia questioned Shanta Kumar, the former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh thats why he was welcoming the quashing of CPS now and why didn’t he objected when they were appointed by the Punjab government.
In a write-up, Shanta Kumar was vocal about the quashing of the CPS in Punjab following an order of Punjab and Haryana High Court, which did not go down well with Kalia. Notably, Kalia also shared the letter on his Facebook page and forwarded it through social media.
Kalia mentioned in the letter that when Shanta Kumar was the Punjab Affairs in-charge in the year 2011, the Punjab government has appointed CPSs but he never objected to it. “Where was he during that period of time? He should have objected to the appointments of CPS then instead of welcoming the high court’s orders now”, he said.
The Jalandhar Central MLA also pointed out that when Shanta Kumar was the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh from the year 1990 to 1992, at that time he had appointed two CPS along with 12 ministers including nine cabinet ministers in his government.
“Instead, you (Shanta) mentioned that during your tenure as CM in the year 1977, your government had eight cabinet ministers while the current Congress government has 20 ministers leading to burden on the state exchequer. But, when you appointed CPS, was that not a burden on the state exchequer?” he questioned.
Further, Kalia shared that Shanta Kumar was writing a book on his political life titled ‘Adhure Safar ki Puri Kahani’ and said that this book would be completed with the three ‘public’ letters written to him. It is pertinent to mention here that war of words and difference of opinion between Kalia and Shanta Kumar has been going on for a long time. Earlier, Kalia has written two letters to Shanta Kumar for praising the then UPA-led Congress government and for raising voice against the ‘Vayapam Scam’ in Madhya Pradesh. Shanta Kumar has written an open letter to BJP National president Amit Shah over the Vyapam Scam and raised questions over BJP’s silence over it.
