UTTARAKHAND CM RAWAT FACES PROBE FOR ‘FALSIFYING POLL DETAILS’
DEHRADUN: The Election Commission has directed the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) to re-evaluate chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat’s immovable assets, which he declared in the nomination papers for the assembly elections in February this year.
The poll panel’s directive follows a complaint by former BJP member Raghunath Singh Negi, who accused Rawat of providing “false information, concealment and misrepresentation of actual age, pending litigation and valuation of immovable properties” in the election papers.
In his complaint on October 30, Negi alleged that the chief minister had given wrong information before assembly elections in 2007 and 2012 as well as a bypoll in 2014 that he lost.
The chief minister’s office refused comments but the BJP’s state general secretary, Naresh Bansal, said the complaint was motivated. “We will present our version before the agency concerned if it approaches us with such a request,” he said.
According to Negi, who heads Jan Sangharh Morcha (JSM), a fringe political group, the chief minister “undervalued” farmlands and residential plots registered in his and wife’s name in Dehradun. He mentioned three residential properties that Rawat bought for his wife. The immovable properties were valued at Rs 9.56 lakh against the actual cost of Rs 84 lakh, he alleged. He accused Rawat of stamp duty evasion of Rs 65,000 in the purchase of land in Shera Gaon near Dehradun, measuring 0.126 hectares. Negi said Rawat purchased the properties after his name figured in the Dhaincha scam involving farm seeds when he was agriculture minister in the BJP government that ruled the state for five years from 2007. He alleged that the chief minister provided incorrect details about his age in three affidavits. “In his papers ahead of the 2014 Doiwala bypoll, he said he was 54, the same age he mentioned in the affidavit before the 2017 assembly elections” Negi alleged. “In 2012, Rawat mentioned his age as 51.” If Rawat’s birth year is 1960, he should be more than 56, the complainant said. The complaint prompted the Election Commission to direct the CBDT on Dec 19 check Rawat’s “immovable properties”, in accordance with his nomination papers for the 2017 polls, and submit a report. The opposition Congress was guarded in its response. “We hope an impartial inquiry will be conducted … and the EC will take appropriate action in case irregularities are detected,” party leader Surendra Kumar said.