By IANS,
Shimla : Congress leader and five-time Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh has revealed that he and his family have movable and immovable properties and valuables worth over Rs.30 crore.
In an affidavit on his properties and assets filed along with the nomination papers for the Nov 4 state assembly elections, Virbhadra Singh said he and his wife Pratibha Singh, a former MP, have Rs.8.26 crore and Rs.4.87 crore respectively as deposits with financial instruments, jewellery and other movable assets.
Virbhadra Singh has also taken a loan of Rs.402,720 from the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha secretariat.
The former union minister also owns two vehicles and a flat in New Delhi.
Besides, according to the affidavit, Virbhadra Singh has movable and immovable properties worth Rs.18.78 core and his wife has worth Rs.30 lakh. The former union minister has insurance policies worth Rs.1.5 crore, and his wife has these over Rs.2 crore.
Virbhadra Singh is pitted against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s greenhorn Ishwar Rohal from the Shimla (rural) seat.
The Singh couple is facing corruption charges.
They were booked by police in 2009 under the Prevention of Corruption Act for alleged misuse of official position and criminal misconduct when Virbhadra Singh was the chief minister in 1989.
According to police, the couple was booked on the basis of an audio cassette released by Virbhadra Singh’s political adversary Vijai Singh Mankotia in 2007.
The cassette allegedly contained his telephonic conversation with Indian Administrative Service officer Mohinder Lal, who is now dead.
It also contained voices of Pratibha Singh and some industrialists, who have been identified by police, proposing to invest in the state.
The trial court in Shimla, while framing the graft charges against the couple June 25, observed the “materials on record show existence of criminal conspiracy by Virbhadra Singh and Pratibha Singh”.