Addressing media persons here, the minister alleged that the negative attitude of the previous Congress government was responsible for annoying the Apollo group following which the project was shelved. The present BJP government was trying to revive the idea of the project after high-level talks with the Appolo group had shown positive results, he added reminding the Congress of the negative statement given on the floor of the House regarding the VMI.

It may be mentioned that Chief Minister P. K. Dhumal, a few months ago had stated that this project had been practically aborted on the plea that there could not be two medical colleges in one district.

Interestingly, former chief minister Shanta Kumar, now Member of Parliament, in a party workers' meeting held here recently had also reportedly expressed his desire for setting up the institute, the foundation stone of which was laid during the previous BJP regime in 1992, a couple of months before it was dismissed.

Kapoor also wanted to know from the Congress why it had betrayed the masses and students by starting a medical college at Tanda before getting approval from the Medical Council of India. The seats of Shimla Medical College were also reduced to 65 this year by the present government after MCI reportedly threatened to derecognise it too, he clarified. He accused the previous government of having increased the seats to 100 for achieving narrow political ends.

Launching a frontal attack on the Congress, the minister held it responsible for dropsy deaths.