Bikaner land deals: Vadra grilled again

JAIPUR: Robert Vadra, the husband of the AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi was grilled for more than eight hours by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) here for the second consecutive day on Wednesday. The interrogation were done in a closed-door room by officials of the enforcement of both Jaipur and Delhi. The interrogations relate to the various land deals that Vadra’s companies were involved in the Bikaner district.

The ED is trying to know how wasteland spread in 274 bighas in the Thar desert that his company bought for Rs 74 lakh was sold for hefty Rs 5.16 crore after three years when the prices of land in the area in Kolayat tehsil did not rise. The land is arid and cultivation was not possible because of the paucity of water. But this land was sold by Vadra’s company for an unbelievable premium.

The ED had registered a criminal case in connection with the deal in 2015, taking cognisance of a clutch of FIRs and chargesheets filed by the Rajasthan police after the tehsildar of Bikaner complained about alleged forgery in the allotment of land in the area, considered sensitive due to its proximity to the Indo-Pak border.