Oppn releases documents on Anar Patel's land deal

With Human resource development (HRD) minister Smriti Irani facing the Opposition heat in Parliament, a combative BJP has decided to aggressively target former home minister P Chidambaram on the Ishrat Jehan affidavit issue to corner the Congress.

As government tried to turn the tables on the Opposition, by cashing in on the new revelations related to Ishrat Jahan and allegations of financial irregularities against Chidambaram's son Karti in the Aircel Maxis deal, Congress released new sets of documents and created ruckus in the Rajya Sabha on the business associates of Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel's daughter Anar Patel. The documents stated that Anandiben sold land near the Gir forest reserve for a song in 2010 when Narendra Modi was the chief minister and Anandiben the revenue minister.

As party of its belligerent strategy, BJP leaders also decided to agree to debate in both Houses the Aircel-Maxis deal, a demand which was being made by the AIADMK since Tuesday. Parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu conveyed this in Lok Sabha amidst protests by Opposition members that they were not being allowed to speak on their demand for a privilege motion against Smriti.

However, later an upset Speaker Sumitra Mahajan was forced to allow them to speak for a few minutes each on their notice for a privilege motion against Smriti for "misleading" the house on the death of dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula. Mahajan expressed her anguish over "slogans against the Speaker" before allowing them to speak. Members of Congress (KC Venugopal and Ranjita Ranjan), Trinamool Congress (Sugata Roy and Sudip Bandopadhyay) CPM (Mohammad Salim) alleged that Smriti had spoken "untruth" and "misled" the nation. In a stinging remark, Ranjita accused the minister of referring to her in a "threatening" adding that this reflected the difference between an "elected member" and a "selected member". Smriti had lost the Lok Sabha polls in Amethi and was given a Rajya Sabha seat.

BJP's chief whip Arjun Meghwal said Smriti had quoted a police report while making her point. The minister was not present in the House. The Opposition is also upset about her quoting from pamphlets on Goddess Durga.

The BJP, however, is planning to use the recording of her speech in poll-bound West Bengal, sources said.

The Speaker has said the privilege notice was under her consideration. Meanwhile, BJP members want a discussion on the Ishrat Jahan issue, which the party plans to take up in the light of "revelations" being made by former bureaucrats on changing the affidavit at the political level. The BJP, which has been chanting "nationalism", are alleging that the Congress undermined national security for political motives. Congress president Sonia Gandhi has backed Chidambaram.

Congress's Mallikarjun Kharge raised union minister Ram Shankar Katheria's reported controversial remarks directed at Muslims, but amidst an uproar, she adjourned the House for a few minutes.

When Aircel-Maxis was taken up in Lok Sabha later, in an apparent attempt to embarrass Congress, Kharge and Trinamul's Saugata Roy questioned the House discussing acts of an individual (Karti) who was not even a member and at the same time, not allowing debate on Gujarat chief minister's land deals.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley, in reply to the two-hour debate, said the CBI has already filed the charge sheet in the Aircel-Maxis mega scam and the Court took cognisance of the ED's charge-sheet only last week on February by sending notices to the accused. Denying that there was any political vendetta involved in the probe, Jaitley said neither the government nor the investigating agencies were influenced by the Opposition's stance of stalling Parliament over the issue. "Let the case details go to the court and then "all the documents will become public," he said.

"We have no holy cows to be protected," he said, pointing out that the investigating agencies enjoy absolute freedom to probe.

The AIADMK members alleged involvement of P Chidambaram's businessman son Karti in the "shady deal" which they claimed had links with the 2G scam.

Land dealings row
In Rajya Sabha, countering government attempts to corner the Opposition, leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad pointing out that 422 acres of land was allotted to Wildwoods Resorts, owned by Dakshesh Shah and Amol Sheth having extensive business dealings with Anar Patel's firms, at just Rs15 per square metre while Muralidhar Gau Seva Trust running a cow shelter in the same area was offered the land at Rs671 sq metre.