The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Thursday said it had approached the Election Commission seeking action against Maharashtra water resources minister Girish Mahajan who allegedly “forcibly” acquired a piece of land in 2002 for setting up a sugar mill, and did not mention it in his election affidavit.
“Mahajan forcibly acquired land in Jalgaon district from Dalits in 2002, promising to set up a sugar mill and thereby providing well-paying jobs to the farmers. All these years, no sugar mill has come up,” NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said.
The five-acre land at Mangaon village in Bhusawal tehsil was ‘Mahar watan land’ (land bestowed on members of Mahar community during the British or pre-British period) which could not be transferred without the government’s permission, he said, alleging that no such permission was obtained.
“Even after acquiring the plot forcefully and illegally, Mahajan did not mention the details of land in his election affidavit in the subsequent elections,” Mr Malik said.
“So we have moved the EC against misappropriation and demanded that he should be disqualified as an MLA,” he further added.
To the BJP leader’s contention (after the allegations surfaced two days ago) that he forgot to mention the property while filing his election affidavit, Mr Malik said Mr Mahajan was carrying out a lot of development work on the plot and building an approach road.
“Therefore, it is not possible that he forgot to mention the property details in his election affidavit,” the NCP leader said.
