Shimla, March 27 -- The Leader of the Opposition in the Himachal Assembly and former Chief Minister of the state, Jai Ram Thakur, on Friday accused the state government of attempting to 'defame and shut' the Himcare scheme by presenting misleading figures on alleged corruption and demanded an apology from Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.

Speaking to the media and later to ANI, Thakur said the Congress government had failed to justify its claims of large-scale irregularities in the scheme.

"We were repeatedly asking why payments were not being made. Now the truth has come out in the Assembly, where the Chief Minister himself said there was a scam of Rs 100 crore at one point and Rs 1,100 crore at another," he said.

Questioning the...