Rajiv trust asked to vacate land in Amethi

After a prolonged administrative and legal process, the Amethi district administration has asked the Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust to immediately vacate the 1.0360-hectare land at Rokha village in Jais, where it was imparting vocational training to members of self-help groups, said officials.

They added that the said land was initially registered in the name of a vocational training centre but subsequently, it was allegedly captured by the trust.

The question regarding the ownership of the land was first raised by Union minister Smriti Irani, after she unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Amethi against Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Four of the five assembly segments of the Amethi parliamentary seat come under the jurisdiction of the district administration.

But Irani’s protest fell on deaf ears during the rule of the previous Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party government in UP.

After BJP’s Yogi Adityanath became the chief minister earlier this year, the district administration took note of Irani’s letter and sprung into action. Subsequently, Amethi district magistrate Yogesh Kumar asked Tiloi sub-divisional magistrate Ashok Kumar Shukla to consider the matter with “special attention”.

The first notice to the trust was issued by district development officer (DDO) OP Pandey on March 27, which was followed by notices from chief development officer Om Prakash on April 10 and Shukla on April 28.

The notices asked the trust to produce the documents pertaining to the ownership or use of the land. Shukla said the trust responded but it was “neither clear nor sufficient”.

Meanwhile, one Kiran Singh, claiming to be representing the self-help groups, members of which were being trained by the trust, approached Allahabad high court, which asked the district administration to throw light on the status of the land and activities of the self-help groups.

The SDM again asked the trust to furnish the documents. As the trust failed to do so, the SDM last week directed the Tiloi tehsildar to initiate the process to vacate the land.

The Congress blamed Irani for the development.

“The current scenario is nothing but a result of the ill intentions of Irani, who lost the parliamentary poll against our popular leader Rahul Gandhi,” district Congress chief Yogendra Mishra said.

THE QUESTION ABOUT THE OWNERSHIP OF THE LAND WAS FIRST RAISED BY SMRITI IRANI AFTER SHE UNSUCCESSFULLY CONTESTED THE 2014 LS POLLS FROM AMETHI