The Congress on Tuesday demanded a judicial probe under the supervision of the Supreme Court into land deals in Ujjain allegedly linked to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s family and relatives.
The accusations of conflict of interest came after an investigation he published Indian Express It brought the purchases into public view. Neither Yadav nor the BJP have officially responded to the accusations yet, although his relatives said they were already in the real estate business and there was no wrongdoing.
Congress general secretary and communications chief Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, described the Madhya Pradesh government – targeting the BJP’s ‘dual engine’ slogan – as running the “engine of plunder at full speed”. He accused Mohan Yadav of being the “mastermind”.
Ramesh also claimed that the details may have come to light due to “infighting” in the BJP, pointing the finger at Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, a former chief minister who moved from state to center when Yadav became chief minister. Chouhan is yet to react to the social media post.
State Congress president Jeetu Patwari termed the allegations a “big blot on the face of Madhya Pradesh”, saying the chief minister should “answer to the 8 crore people of the state and the country”.
Patwari also sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and called on the Supreme Court judge to conduct an investigation into the matter.
What are the allegations?
Based on State Land Revenue (Khatouni) records, the IE report said the Yadav family and the real estate companies it ran bought at least 137 plots of land covering 168 acres in Ujjain for… $45 crore after taking over as Prime Minister on December 13, 2023.
The buyers mentioned in the report are Yadav’s wife Seema, Vaibhav’s daughter-in-law Shalini Yadav, brothers Nandal and Narayan Yadav, Narayan’s wife Rekha, their son Abhay Yadav, and cousins Govind and Nilesh Yadav, either directly or through one of the four real estate companies run by the family.
The newspaper claimed that 111 of the 168 acres purchased since Yadav became chief minister are adjacent to road projects announced by his government, and that the family holdings overlap with several areas where land use has been changed from agricultural to residential or commercial under the Ujjain Master Plan 2035.
A relative responded: “…just because the Prime Minister is from our family?”
Speaking to IE on behalf of his cousins Govind and Nilesh Yadav, Govind Yadav’s son Anant Yadav said: “Our family has been in the real estate business since 2010 when my father developed a 100-bigha property. My uncle has many housing projects. As individuals, we have every right to buy, develop or sell any private land. Should we close the project just because the Prime Minister is from our family?”
He said some of the deals dated back to 2020 and that the highway works in question were approved in 2019, before Mohan Yadav became Prime Minister in December 2023.
