Worried Congress summons Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh

New Delhi: A worried Congress High Command on Tuesday summoned Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh to Delhi over a series of corruption charges that have surfaced against him. The CM is expected to arrive in the evening.

The move to summon Singh comes in the wake of Congress Party vice president Rahul Gandhi taking a serious view against corruption.

The summoning also comes as CBI started examining a letter written by BJP leader Arun Jaitley levelling corruption allegations against Virbhadra Singh and does not rule out the possibility of examining the Congress veteran at a later stage.

Jaitley, leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha, had written the letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and marked a copy to CBI Director Ranjit Sinha making various corruption allegations against Virbhadra Singh including that he received pay offs of over Rs two crore from a private steel firm during his tenure as Union Steel Minister. Virbhadra Singh has denied all charges and said that he was ready for a probe by any agency.

Official sources said they were examining the letter written by Jaitley as the agency had already included the allegations levelled against Singh in a Preliminary Enquiry registered last year at the request of State Trading Corporation which had called for a CBI probe.

The STC had requested for a probe as Income Tax department had recovered a set of documents from a Mumbai- based steel firm which alleged pay off to various ministries and some of the entries were marked against initials of 'VBS' and 'MoS APS'.

There were four entries made to the listed beneficiary -- 'VBS'--which totalled up to Rs 2.8 crore from October, 2009 to October, 2010. Singh was Steel Minister from May 28, 2009 to January 18, 2011. The CBI, which is probing the case, did not rule out the possibility of examining Singh and his family members in connection with the case, they said.