Now MP Congress accuses Scindia of land grab, urges CM not to give his camp revenue portfolio
Politics

Now MP Congress accuses Scindia of land grab, urges CM not to give his camp revenue portfolio

Jyotiraditya Scindia had been accused of grabbing land in 2014, but days after joining BJP in March, case against him was closed for ‘lack of evidence’.

   
Jyotiraditya Scindia at the BJP headquarters, New Delhi | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

Jyotiraditya Scindia at the BJP headquarters, New Delhi | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

New Delhi: Senior Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Govind Singh has urged Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan not to allocate the revenue portfolio to anyone from the Jyotiraditya Scindia “camp”, alleging it would help the former Congressman embezzle government land allotted to his trust.

This is clear a sign of how the tables have turned since Scindia and his supporters joined the BJP in March.

“The collector officer along with the government advocates in the high court in Gwalior mentioned the government land in the name of Scindia. He gets government lands named after his trust with the help of the revenue minister, so I have requested the CM not to choose a revenue minister from the Scindia camp,” Singh said.

However, BJP’s Vishvas Sarang, newly-appointed minister in the MP cabinet, hit back at the Congress, saying the party should have given the suggestion when Kamal Nath was in power.

“If the same suggestion was given to former Chief Minister Kamal Nath, then things would have been better. Scindia has fought for justice, he left Congress as the farmers’ loan was not being waived off, and when the Congress created chaos in the state. He didn’t leave for his own benefit,” Sarang said.

Last Thursday, the Madhya Pradesh council of ministers was expanded from five to 33, with 14 of the ministers being former Congress leaders who switched to the BJP with Scindia. But CM Shivraj Chouhan has not yet allotted portfolios.

ThePrint reached Scindia, now a Rajya Sabha MP, via calls and text messages, but there was no response until the time of publishing this report.


Also read: ‘Tiger abhi zinda hai’ but Scindia has territorial wars to fight in BJP, his new sanctuary


The case and the closed probe

Before switching parties, Scindia had been under constant attack from the BJP since the land fraud allegations against him first surfaced in March 2014. Scindia and members of two different charitable trusts run by his family were accused of illegally selling prime government land to a realtor in Gwalior, and a businessman had subsequently lodged a complaint with Madhya Pradesh’s economic offences wing (EOW), seeking investigation into the matter.

Just two months before Scindia switched sides, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Prabhat Jha had hit out at him for “grabbing government land”, and had even urged then-CM Kamal Nath to take action against him.

“He has grabbed government land in the name of trusts. During the ongoing action against mafia, I request chief Kamal Nath to act against him (Scindia) for encroaching government land,”Jha had said in January.

However, just days after Scindia’s entry into the BJP in March, the EOW closed the forgery case, citing lack of evidence. Scindia joined the BJP with 22 Congress MLAs who resigned from the assembly, leading to the collapse of the Kamal Nath government.A


Also read: BJP didn’t acquire Scindia just for power. It’s also to keep Shivraj Singh Chouhan in check