Dehra Dun: Union Minister and Congress leader Anand Sharma on Friday described the BJP rule in Uttarakhand as a "black chapter" and said people of the hill state would give a befitting reply to the party in the January 30 polls.

At a press conference here, he alleged wide-spread corruption in the BJP government and said Congress has prepared "a charge sheet of scams and scandals" that surfaced during the rule of a former Chief Minister and handed it over to the Governor.

"Everybody knows that natural resources were looted in the name of development and builders and mining mafias were patronised in the state under BJP rule," he said.

Sharma accused Uttarakhand Chief Minister B C Khanduri of keeping mum when the "open loot" was going on in the state.

He said the turnout at the rallies of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi showed that people have made up their mind to teach a lesson to the BJP for its "misdeeds".

Without taking the names of yoga guru Ramdev or Anna Hazare, he said some people posing as 'baba' or social activists were misleading people for the past few months. But, people have now understood who is behind such people, he said.

To a question regarding curtailment of Central Industrial Package (CIP) for Uttarakhand, he said only exemption in excise duty has been withdrawn while all other incentives are still being provided.

On Congress party's promise to provide unemployment allowance to youths if voted to power, the union minister said the central government is bringing the Food Security Bill and some other bills which target to give employment to 10 crore people in the next 10 years.

PTI