Soil scam: Lalu owns mall land
After maintaining silence for almost five days over allegations that his family owns property worth `750crore, RJD chief Lalu Yadav admitted the large patch of land on which a mall is being constructed, belongs to his wife Rabri Devi and two minister sons, Tej Pratap and Tejaswi Yadav.
Mr Yadav said the land was purchased by Delight Marketing Company, owned by his closest aide and five-time Rajya Sabha MP, Prem Gupta, in 2005 but in 2008 the company’s shares were sold to Rabri Devi. He added the family members later decided to make commercial use of the property and gave the land to Meridian Construction Company on profit-sharing basis.
“My family will get only 50 per cent share of the mall while the rest will go to Meridian Constructions,” Mr Yadav said, adding that the land on which the mall is being built belongs to LARA Projects, in which Rabri Devi, Tej Pratap and Tejaswi Yadav are shareholders.
Mr Yadav, however, dismissed charges that the land in question was transferred by hotelier Harsh Kochar for helping him in acquiring two hotels — one in Puri and the other in Ranchi — when he was the railway minister in 2005.
He said Delight Marketing Company, owned by Prem Gupta, bought the land in 2005 and the shares of the company were later sold to his family in 2008. Lalu Yadav, however, refused to furnish details of the transaction and also refused to speak on the reasons behind the deal.
“Only scamsters see scams everywhere, I don’t see anything wrong in the deal as all legal norms were followed at the time of buying the shares of Delight Marketing Company,” Mr Yadav said.
The scam came to light after BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi pointed out that Mr Yadav’s family owned big patch of land in Patna, and was also constructing a mall worth `500crore. He earlier charged Tej Pratap violated the tender rules and gave a contract worth `90lakh to a private company MS Enterprises, which allegedly bought soil from his under-construction mall site for renovation work of the Patna zoo.