SHIMLA: Accusing Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur of wrongly taking credit for the construction of Atal Tunnel, the Himachal Congress Sunday asked him to restore a plaque that declared the foundation stone was laid by Sonia Gandhi, or her party will do so after coming to power.
In a press statement issued here Sunday, Himachal Pradesh Congress president Pratibha Singh said Gandhi had laid the foundation stone of the tunnel on June 23, 2010.
"By removing the foundation stone laid by Sonia Gandhi, the BJP governments at the Center and the state have shown their petty mentality," said the Mandi MP.
The tribal area of ??Lahaul Spiti and the people of the state are well aware of this fact, she said.
"The CM cannot mislead the people by telling lies."
The Congress state president said, "It is very unfortunate that the names of Congress leaders Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi who played an important role in the construction of this tunnel, are not even taken."
The BJP today is trying to tamper with the history of the country to serve its political interests, she alleged.
"If the BJP government does not restore this plaque, this plaque will be restored at the same place as soon as the Congress government is formed in the state," Singh said.
The Himachal Pradesh police had on October 14, 2020 said that the foundation stone was secure with the construction company which built the tunnel.
The police had issued the clarification after the state Congress alleged that the foundation stone laid by Sonia Gandhi for the tunnel over a decade ago had been removed before its inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 3, 2020.
Then Kullu superintendent of police Gaurav Singh said the Border Roads Organisations (BRO) had kept the stone in the mechanical workshop of the tunnel's construction company SAJV so that it could not get damaged during the construction.
The SP had said the Lahaul-Spiti police had got a complaint from the district Congress regarding the missing plaque and it was forwarded to the Kullu police.
This came to light during investigation that the foundation stone is secure and lying in the workshop, he had added.
Earlier in a letter to Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur in October 2020 itself, then state Congress president Kuldeep Singh Rathore had said Gandhi had laid the foundation stone in 2010 in the presence of the then CM Prem Kumar Dhumal and Union minister Virbhadra Singh.
Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, after whom the tunnel has been named, had announced the project during a public meeting at Lahaul-Spiti's Keylong in June 2000.
Vajpayee had laid the foundation stone for an approach road to the tunnel in 2002.
The all-weather road beneath the 13,058-foot-high mountain in Himachal Pradesh's Rohtang Pass, Atal Tunnel Rohtang connects Lahaul of Lahaul-Spiti district and Manali of Kullu district in Himachal Pradesh.
The 9.2-km-long tunnel is the world's longest highway single-tube tunnel located above 10,040 feet.