In a satirical move, former chief minister of Himachal Pradesh and current Leader of the opposition, Jairam Thakur arranged a samosa party for BJP members in Mandi on Friday. This event was a clear dig at the ongoing protest against chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and a peculiar episode that happened at a CID event where samosas served went missing.
Samosa party
During the mock samosa party, Thakur was seen enjoying the popular snack simultaneously with BJP leaders and workers. He commented, “Bahot Swadisht hai bhai (It is delicious, brother).” The saffron party, which uploaded the video on social media, continued to object to the Congress government dealing with the situation.
The controversy erupted when three boxes of samosas and cakes meant for CM Sukhu at a function on October 21 at the CID headquarters disappeared and were reportedly consumed by his security guards. The situation escalated when some media channels reported that the CID had opened an investigation into the incident which both Sukhu and CID officials have denied.
Online samosas for CM
BJP MLA from Hamirpur, Ashish Sharma, ordered 11 samosas online for chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.
“The state is already grappling with problems like unemployment, financial crisis, delay in employees’ pension and arrears of DA allowance and at such a time, ordering a CID inquiry on samosas brought for Chief Minister Sukhu is very disappointing,” Sharma said in a Facebook post in Hindi.
“In protest against this, I have sent 11 samosas to the chief minister, so that I can remind him that it is more important to solve the real problems of the people,” he added.
State BJYM president Tilak Raj said people are unhappy with the government, educated and unemployed youngsters do not have jobs, but the CID is probing non-serving of samosas.
He claimed that the law-and-order situation has deteriorated in the state, drug abuse is on the rise among youngsters, including school-going children, of the 1,170 youngsters in the age group of 15-30 years admitted at rehabilitation centres, 35 per cent are “chitta” addicts, but the government is not bothered.
BJP spokesperson and Sri Naina Devi ji MLA Randhir Sharma said, “This government seems to be concerned about the CM’s samosas rather than being concerned about the state’s development.”
Sukku denies CID inquiry
Meanwhile, CM Sukhu has described BJP’s action as childish and stated clearly that the alleged probe was about officials’ “misbehaviour” and definitely not about missing samosas. He said that the BJP has been running a smear campaign and spreading malice against his government ever since the Congress secured 40 seats in the last Assembly polls.
While talking to reporters in Shimla, Shukhu said “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.”
Won’t take action: Himachal police
Similarly, the Director General of Himachal Pradesh CID, Snjeev Ranjan Ojha also denied the allegations relating to this hilarious case stating that it was just a couple of officers sitting for tea and wondering where the boxes of snacks ordered for the event were.
“The chief minister was the chief guest at the launch of a data centre for the cyber-crime wing. After the event, the officials were having tea in the office when someone asked where were the eatables brought for the function and we said — ‘pata karo kya hua’ (find out what happened).”
“Neither have we issued any notice nor called for any explanation. The matter should not be politicised. We simply asked for a clarification as to what happened and a written report was submitted. We have no intention of taking action against anyone.”
(With PTI inputs)
