Punjab state ministers Pratap Singh Bajwa and Amarjit Singh Samra, and Delhi legislator Arvinder Singh Lovely have denied any involvement in the sex racket busted in Ahmedabad recently.
Gujarat Minister of State for Home Affairs Amit Shah had announced at a press conference in Ahmedabad on Sunday that the names of the two ministers and the legislator, all belonging to the Congress party, had come up during the probe of a sex racket unearthed by the Gujarat police.
Shah said the probe revealed that the three, while staying at Taj Residency in Ahmedabad during the electioneering for Gujarat assembly polls, had used the services of call girls.
Bajwa, Samra and Lovely have threatened to file separate criminal and civil cases and seek exemplary damages from Shah.
Bajwa is the Public Work Development minister and Samra is the revenue minister in the Cabinet of Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh.
"This is clearly a case of political vendetta and our names have been mentioned with a view to embarrass us. We have nothing to do with any sex racket. Clearly the BJP is trying to put pressure on Amarinder Singh with an eye on Himachal assembly election," Samra told rediff.com on phone from Jallandhar. "I am going to file a Rs 100 crore suit against Amit Shah. The allegations have done enormous damage to our reputations."
Congress MLA in Delhi Assembly Arvinder Singh Lovely said the Gujarat government mistook him as a minister from Punjab because he is a Sikh.
"I had gone there and stayed with two Congressmen from Delhi. Three of us stayed in the same room. I am going to file a Rs one crore defamation suit against the Gujarat minister," Lovely said.
Senior BJP leaders, however, were happy about the discomfiture to the Congress party. "This would now ease the pressure on Prem Kumar Dhumal, the chief minister of Himachal Pradesh," they admitted.
Captain Amarinder Singh had alleged that Dhumal during his tenure as chief minister had purchased six properties worth Rs 41 crore. In response, Dhumal had filed a defamation suit against Singh, All India Congress Committee treasurer Moti Lal Vohra and Congress spokesman Anand Sharma in a Himachal court. The court has summoned all the three accused for hearing on March 15.
Singh has also filed a counter-defamation suit against Dhumal in a Ropar court.
