Former Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jairam Thakur hosted a samosa party for BJP workers on Friday. The development was seen as an attempt to mock Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, as it came amid a row over an alleged CID probe into 'samosas' delivered to his security staff instead of him.
A video showed Thakur, who is the Leader of Opposition in Himachal Pradesh Assembly, enjoying the popular deep-fried snack and chatting with the BJP workers.
A controversy erupted in the Himalayan state over samosas that apparently went missing from an event attended by Sukhu. The event took place at the CID headquarters where boxes of snacks meant to be served to the Chief Minister went missing. The row snowballed over allegations that the CID had launched a probe to investigate the case of the missing samosas.
However, officials rejected the allegations, saying that no official probe had been instituted and that it was an “internal matter” that was being blown out of proportion.
Sanjeev Ranjan Ojha, the director general of Himachal Pradesh CID, said it was a simple matter of a bunch of officers gathering for tea and wondering where boxes of snacks ordered for the event were.
Ojha said that no "probe" had been launched and all that happened was an appeal being made to find out what had happened to the boxes.
Sukhu clarified that the probe was not into samosas, but it was to ascertain "misbehaviour" of officials. He also termed as "childish" the BJP's attack on him over the issue, accusing the saffron party of running a smear campaign against the Congress government in the state ever since it won 40 seats in the last Assembly elections.
"The probe was about misbehaviour of officials but the media has turned the CID probe into samosas. The DGP has already given a clarification in this regard," Sukhu told reporters in Shimla.
Taking potshots at the Sukhu government in the state, the BJP said that ordering a CID probe shows that the Congress is only concerned about the 'Chief Minister's' samosa and not the state's development.
"The government is not concerned about the development of the state and its only concern seems to be the Chief Minister's samosa," BJP spokesperson Randhir Sharma said in a statement.
