In a bid to be politically even-handed, social activist Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday targeted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Nitin Gadkari’s land dealings in Maharashtra. After alleging a sweetheart deal between Congress President Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra, real estate firm DLF and Haryana Chief Minister B S Hooda, Kejriwal tried to prove he and his organisation, India Against Corruption, were not ‘soft’ on the BJP as alleged by the Congress and civil society earlier.
Kejriwal said Gadkari wrote to Maharashtra Irrigation Minister Ajit Pawar to sanction him 100 acres of land that the government had acquired to build a dam in Khursapur village in Umred Taluka in Nagpur district but had been unable to use. Although farmers from whom it had been acquired wrote to the government seeking the return of the land the government was unable to utilise, their requests went unheeded on the grounds the land was being used to ‘beautify’ the area. But when Gadkari asked for the land, with virtually indecent haste, Pawar permitted Gadkari’s companies to acquire it, Kejriwal said.
He said instead of acting as an opposition party and criticising the government for acquiring land it could not use in an area parched for water, Gadkari saw the potential of the land in proximity to a dam and quickly bought it.
Kejriwal charged that having got the land, Gadkari proceeded to divert dam water to his mills and power plants. “This is croneyism of the worst kind and this is what I have sought to expose,” Kejriwal said. Gadkari was cultivating soybean on the same land the farmers had asked for, he said.
Kejriwal said the revelations came to light after a month-long investigation by Anjali Damania, an RTI activist and physician who had joined his newly formed party. He questioned Gadkari’s silence in the face of diversion of irrigation water for power plants and the allocation of 71 power plants in Vidarbha. He said all the parties were an extended family and there was no point expecting either the ruling party or the opposition parties to take up any issue of the public.
Gadkari dismissed the allegations as a conspiracy by the Congress to divide the opposition space. “It is a move to counter the anti-Congress sentiment in the country,’’ he said. He said he did not take that land for himself but for his NGO. “As I have always maintained, I am always ready for any probe,” he said.
“The land was acquired in 1984 and the dam was built in 1997. The farmers were given compensation at the time of acquiring the land. In 2006, this land was given to an NGO to grow saplings of sugarcane for farmers of Vidarbha. It was wasteland given on lease for 11 years to this NGO. So, where is the wrongdoing?” questioned BJP leader Arun Jaitley.