Land allotments during Modi’ tenure as CM must be probed by SIT: Cong

Keeping up the pressure over the Gujarat land row, Congress on Saturday demanded setting up of a Supreme Court-monitored SIT to go into all allotments of government land during the tenure of Narendra Modi as the state chief minister.

“The Special Investigative Team monitored by the Supreme Court should cover all the allotments and grants of public land when Anandiben Patel was the Revenue Minister and Modi was the Chief Minister,” party’s senior spokesman Anand Sharma told reporters in Delhi.

He alleged that there was “plunder” of public land and forest land during Modi’s tenure as Chief Minister as they were given for a “pittance” to “corporate cronies” and others without following due procedure.

In 2010, Gujarat government is believed to have allotted 250 acres of land next to Gir Lion Sanctuary to Wildwoods Resorts and Realties Pvt Ltd (WWRRPL)for setting up a resort which was allotted at a price of Rs 15 per square metre or Rs 60,000 per acre.

Asking Modi to “come clean” on the issue, Sharma sought to know from him whether he was aware of “clear conflict of interest” of the then Revenue Minister Anandiben Patel while allocating government land near Gir Lion Sanctuary to the company which allegedly has close business links with her daughter Anar Patel.

In her second Facebook post in two days, Anar Patel admitted that owner of the company which purportedly got the land was her “business partner” in another firm but she had nothing to do with WWRRPL.

The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday accused Congress and its “first family” of levelling “false and baseless” allegations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Gujarat land deal issue to cover up its own corruption and fraud.