JDU corners BJP over Bihar land deal

Stepping up attack on BJP over large-scale land purchases ahead of demonetisation, the JD(U) today came out with alleged details of transactions showing huge amount was paid in cash.

Patna, Dec 7: Stepping up attack on BJP over large-scale land purchases ahead of demonetisation, the JD(U) today came out with alleged details of transactions showing huge amount was paid in cash at different places and sought to know how the saffron party mobilised huge amount of cash.

Rejecting the defence of senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi and new state party chief Nityanand Rai that payment for land purchases were made through bank RTGS, a statement was issued by senior JD(U) leader Shyam Rajak and 3 state spokesmen Sanjay Singh, Niraj Kumar and Rajiv Ranjan Prasad.

The statement gives details of area of land bought, registration, name of sellers and sources of payment.

After Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had on Monday questioned BJP's silence on the issue of "large-scale purchase of land" in the state ahead of demonetisation and had said if the matter comes before his government it will act on it, the party has stepped up its attack on BJP over the issue.

"The JD(U) has raised the question of large-scale purchase of land by BJP in Bihar ahead of demonetisation for opening offices... BJP should answer from where they got this much of money," Kumar had said.

The JD(U) statement claimed that for 22.38 decimal of land in Bagha at a cost of Rs 66 lakh from Ravindra Nath Tiwari one-third payment was made in cash. Similarly in case of purchase of 31.25 decimal in Bhabua in Kaimur district at Rs 48.75 lakh the entire payment was made in cash, it said.

In Kisanganj for 35 decimal of land a sum of Rs 15 lakh was paid in cash, the statement claimed. In Chapra the entire payment of Rs 48.90 lakh for 56.198 decimal land was made in cash, it claimed.

In Sitamarhi the total amount of Rs 17.80 lakh for four decimal land was paid in cash. In case of 42 decimal land in Sasaram out of a total payment of Rs 1.5 crore a sum of Rs 40 lakh was made in cash, it added. Belting out details of transactions, ruling JD(U) leaders sought to know from BJP as from where they got this much of cash ahead of scrapping of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 bank notes.

"Instead of giving categorical answer as source of huge amount of cash for purchase of lands, the BJP leaders are making false claims that payment was made through bank RTGS system which has been proved wrong seeing the official documents for the purchase," Rajiv Ranjan Prasad told PTI.

Rai had yesterday claimed land purchased by BJP was completely "legal" and the party was open to probe by any agency for the purchases made by it.

PTI