The Vedic Village scandal is now threatening to snowball into a major land scam involving both the ruling CPI(M) and the Opposition TMC leaders, who were instrumental into facilitating the land mafias like Gaffar Molla and others to have free hand in forcibly acquiring farm land for a private realtor on the outskirts of the state capital.
After pressure mounting from Alimuddin Street for arresting all those involved in the shady land deal, the chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee held a meeting with the chief secretary and the DG of police and reviewed the situation. Later the chief secretary said that police investigation would cover the entire gamut of things and no one involved would be spared.
On August 23, an armed mob entered Vedic Village, a resort built on 44 acres of land near Rajarhat New Town, and set it on fire and destroying almost 70% of it. They were mostly local villagers who were provoked into doing this after Gaffar Mollah, a land mafia, attacked and disrupted a local football tournament with bombs and gun fire and then took shelter in the resort. One person was killed and few others were seriously injured. The villagers attacked the resort as over the years Gaffar has been identified with the resort as its henchman to grab more land in the neighbourhood. Gaffar is absconding but police have arrested one official of the resort as the crucial link with Gaffar and one of Gaffar’s associates has also been nabbed by police. Police have discovered a good number of firearms and other weapons from the resort.
Debesh Das, the minister in charge of Department of Information Technology, has said that his department had entered into an agreement last year with Akash Nirman Private Limited, a consortium of number of businessmen, of which Vedic Village Resorts Company was a major stakeholder. According to the agreement the said company will procure land to the tune of 1,200 acres in area adjacent to Rajarhat New Town, and of that procured land will hand over 600 acres to his department free of cost.
In return, the IT department will bear the cost of developing and provide infrastructure. Debesh Das said, “Already, they have identified 500 acres of which around 200 acres have been offered to the state government. But we are examining the documents related to the ownership and so on. We are yet to take possession of the land.” He further added that “the entire deal was cleared by the state cabinet.”
Yet a number of ministers were apparently not in the know of this. Khsiti Goswami, the PWD minister and leader of RSP, said that he did not think that the deal was ever discussed in the Cabinet. He remembered that the chief minister once informed the Cabinet that there had been a surge of demand for land in the IT sector in Salt Lake-Rajarhat New Town area. But since there was no land available in that area, the government has decided to look for land in the adjacent areas to accommodate IT giants like Infosys and Wipro.
The IT minister claimed that since the company engaged by the government was in a process of making outright purchase of land, the government would be spared from acquiring land invoking the Land Acquisition Act, 1894. He did not see any problem with the urban or rural land ceiling Act, as the nature of the land use (from farm land to industry or commercial land) would be changed in the process.
Gautam Deb, minister in charge of department of housing, expressed surprise over this issue and said that the government must find out about the deal between the Vedic Village and the IT sector.
Deb admitted that the government and the ruling CPI(M) were worried and concerned. He demanded to know who in the government were responsible for granting land to Vedic Village over and above the land ceiling Act. Deb indicated that the government would come out with a statement in this regard.
Already the names of one minister of the Left Front government (Rezzak Mollah) and the TMC MLA of the area have come up in relation to the land deals related to the resort. Raj Kishore Modi, the chairman of the Vedic Village Resorts, has been denying any link with the land mafias but was later arrested. Police have claimed that they have got evidence of close link between the resort officials and Gaffar. Already the villagers are vocal about the role of the local TMC MLA and some of the CPI(M) leaders.
Now, with pressure mounted by the chief minister after a meeting, police are likely to unearth some more valuable information which might jar the political parties and the government. Knowing that their MLA is also involved in the scandal, the TMC and their leader Mamata Banerjee have so far been a bit less vocal in attacking the ruling party and the government.
However, Mamata Banerjee said her party would gherao the local police station to highlight the issue. On the other hand, Biman Bose, the state secretary of CPI(M), and Shyamal Chakrabarty, a member of CPI(M) central committee have been demanding stern action against those involved in the deal. Singur was instance of highhanded attitude of the state government in procuring land.
But in the last 30 years, forcible procurement of land had been a major occupation of the realtors-developers, where the political parties of all hues lent their support in exchange of other considerations. Vedic Village scam is threatening to explode in the face of the political parties now.
