Accusing Uttar Pradesh’s Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government of causing a loss of whopping Rs 40,000 crores by “scandalous land allotments” in Noida during last one year, the Baharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday demanded a court-monitored probe into the matter.
“It’s surprising and shocking that the Mayawati government handed over the lands with a total market price of Rs 60,000 crores to some hand-picked builders for just Rs 19,490 crore. All such scandalous allotments were made in 2010-2011 at the behest of the chief minister,” BJP national secretary Kirit Somaiya told reporters at a press conference here.
“We have decided to meet President Pratibha Patil July 13 to seek a thorough probe into the allotments. We want the central government to intervene in the matter, and an SIT (special investigation team) inquiry be ordered at the earliest. We also demand that the SIT inquiry should proceed under the monitoring of the court,” he added. The BJP alleged that the land acquired by the state government for public purposes was handed over to select builders. “We have learnt that the chief minister herself showed great haste in clearing the deals and land measuring 17 lakhs sq metres, worth around Rs 3,360 crores, was cleared on a single day (March 28, 2011).
“Some of the companies that were handed over the most lucrative properties of Noida include Logix Group, Vistar Group and Ponty Chaddha’s Wave Infratech. Not only this, records collected by us also reveal that the investment seems to have come from tax havens like Mauritius,” he alleged. The BJP demanded that the state government reveal the main beneficiaries of the allotments. “If the state government does not come up with the names within two months, we will reveal those names,” said Somaiya.