Congress says Sonia Gandhi laid the first stone in the south portal on June 28, 2010.
Chandigarh:
Congress in Himachal Pradesh has threatened to launch a protest against the alleged removal of party chief Sonia Gandhi’s inaugural plaque from the Atal Tunnel in the state.
The strategically important Atal Tunnel, connecting Manali with the Lahaul-Spiti Valley and reducing travel time to Leh in Ladakh by up to five hours, was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 3 October.
Congressional leaders in Himachal Pradesh have alleged that the foundation plaque with Ms. Gandhi’s name was removed from the tunnel prior to its inauguration.
The chairman of the state party, Kuldeep Singh Rathore, has written to the prime minister, Jairam Thakur, warning him of a protest.
“If the missing cornerstone is not reinstalled, Congress will conduct a statewide agitation against the government,” Rathore wrote in the letter.
“This (removing the stone) is an undemocratic, unconventional and illegal step,” he added in the letter.
Congress said that Ms Gandhi had laid the foundation stone for the Rohtang Tunnel project at the southern portal on June 28, 2010, at Dhoondi in Manali.
Congress has alleged that the foundation plaque with Sonia Gandhi’s name was removed from the tunnel.
Two party leaders, Gialchhen Thakur and Hari Chand Sharma, have filed a police case in Keylong and Manali seeking investigations into how the first stone disappeared.
Opening the tunnel earlier this month, Prime Minister Modi used the occasion to deliver several coups in Congress (though without naming the opposition party), declaring that defense interests had been compromised under his rule.
The decision to build a strategic tunnel under the Rohtang Pass in Himachal was made on June 3, 2000, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister. The Union Cabinet decided in 2019 to name the Rohtang Tunnel the Atal Tunnel to honor the contribution made by the former prime minister.
Described as the longest road construction of its kind in the world, the 9.02 km long Atal Tunnel is built to “ultra-modern specifications” at an altitude of 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) in the Pir Panjal mountain range of the Himalayas.
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