Robert Vadra land deal: Once a trump card for BJP in elections, now gets clean chit
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New Delhi: The controversy surrounding a land deal between M/s Skylight Hospitality, owned by Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, and DLF Universal Ltd, a real estate company, has been used by the BJP to make history in Haryana's 2014 elections.
The BJP took advantage of IAS officer Ashok Khemka's cancellation of the mutation of the land deal in October 2012 and produced a six-page booklet called "Damad Shree," referring to Vadra's alleged deals in Rajasthan and Haryana.
The party also released an almost eight-minute campaign film that aimed to prove that Vadra received assistance in these business dealings from the Gandhi family when the Congress was in power both at the state and Centre. In 2014, the BJP won 47 out of the 90 seats in the Haryana Assembly and came to power for the first time.
The BJP-JJP government, led by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, has stated in the Punjab and Haryana High Court that the transfer of land by Robert Vadra's M/s Skylight Hospitality to DLF Universal Limited did not violate any regulations or rules.
This comes almost ten years after the controversial land deal that was used by the BJP to gain political advantage and win the 2014 Assembly elections in Haryana. Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the former Chief Minister of Haryana, has also claimed that the case was politically motivated.
In 2018, an FIR was filed against Hooda, Vadra, and real estate companies DLF and Onkareshwar Properties for alleged criminal conspiracy, cheating, fraud, forgery, and violating the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Congress party, Hooda, and Vadra have all denied any wrongdoing.
In response to the Haryana government's submission that no rules were violated in the Robert-Vadra-DLF land deal, Jawahar Yadav, the OSD of Haryana CM, stated on Friday that the government has not exonerated Robert Vadra of any wrongdoing in the land scam case, and accused the Congress of spreading false information.
Yadav clarified that they did not find any involvement of former CM OP Chautala and that they were not claiming that the scam did not occur.
