One of the main lines of attack in the BJP’s campaign against the Congress in Haryana in recent past has been charges against Robert Vadra. Ahead of the 2014 Assembly elections, the BJP had widely circulated a booklet called “Damaad-Shri” and also released a campaign film on the charges. This time too, all through the campaign for the October 5 Haryana Assembly elections, senior BJP leaders targeted Vadra, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s husband and Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law.
Addressing a rally in Sonipat on September 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that under the Congress governments headed by Bhupinder Singh Hooda (2004-14), the state had been handed over to “damaad (son-in-law) and dalaals (middlemen)”.
On Thursday, on the last day of campaigning, Hooda countered the BJP, accusing it of “spreading false propaganda that Robert Vadra was given land by the Haryana government”. “The Congress government did not give even an inch of government land to Robert Vadra. If the BJP shows proof (to the contrary), I will quit politics,” he said.
What is the BJP’s reference to?
In February 2008, when Hooda was the Haryana CM, Skylight Hospitality, a company launched by Vadra in 2007 with a capital of Rs 1 lakh, bought about 3.5 acres of land in Manesar-Shikohpur in Gurgaon from Onkareshwar Properties for Rs 7.5 crore. The plot was mutated in favour of Skylight the next day, and the title of the land transferred to Vadra within 24 hours of the purchase. This process usually takes at least three months.
A month later, the Haryana government gave Skylight Hospitality permission to develop a housing project on most of the land. This led to an immediate increase in the value of the land.
In June 2008, DLF agreed to buy the plot for Rs 58 crore – which meant that in just a few months, the value of Vadra’s property had increased by close to 700%. The payment was made to Vadra in instalments, and by 2012, the mutation transferring the colony licence on the land to DLF was over.
Soon after, in October 2012, senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka cancelled the mutation of the plot on the grounds that the assistant consolidation officer, who had sanctioned it, was “not competent” to do so.
Khemka, who was the Director General, Consolidation of Holdings and Land Records-cum-Inspector General of Registration, was transferred from the department hours later.
What is the status of the deal?
On September 1, 2018, the Gurugram police registered a criminal case against Hooda, Vadra and others under Sections 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using a forged document or electronic record as genuine) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act (criminal misconduct by a public servant).
However, in April 2023, the Haryana government informed the Punjab and Haryana High Court that “no violation of rules or regulations have been detected in the transfer of land by Ms Skylight Hospitality to DLF Universal Limited in Gurgram”.
The Haryana government said this through an affidavit to a Bench that was suo motu hearing a matter pertaining to pendency of cases against sitting and former MPs and MLAs in Punjab, Haryana and Union Territory of Chandigarh.
Has the BJP government in the state taken any action in the matter?
The BJP has been in power in Haryana since 2014. In 10 years and across two governments, its government has not prosecuted either Vadra or the DLF for the land deal.
In July, former Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar virtually absolved Vadra of any illegality saying that “the matter does not invite a jail term”. Now the Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs, he said at a press briefing in Jaipur: “There is no such illegality in the matter (land transaction) that action has to be taken against someone to put them in jail… We do not get inquiries conducted with the aim of sending our opponents to jail.”
Adding that an inquiry had indicated that “there was a variation in the sale and purchase price of the land, which raised suspicion that someone profited from it”, Khattar said: “There could at best be non-criminal action like imposition of penalty or reverting of the land.”
Hooda has accused the BJP of destroying a “farmer-friendly land acquisition policy” implemented in Haryana and the entire country under Congress governments in the state and the Centre. “We implemented floor rates for land in the entire state. Before this, the INLD and BJP had together looted farmers in the name of land acquisition. The Congress implemented the rule that royalty would be given for 33 years on land acquisition, but the BJP did not give even that to farmers.”
What has been Vadra’s reaction?
With the BJP attacking him constantly during the campaign, Vadra said on September 26: “I am quite surprised that once again the Prime Minister has used my name. They have had their own government in Haryana as well as at the Centre. In the last decade, they have set up commissions. The Dhingra commission was set up to conduct an inquiry into my companies and me. There were RTIs to check how much land I have in Haryana. We have had notices of all sorts. Whatever works that we were doing in Haryana were stopped. Whichever companies I dealt with had notices sent. So they have done everything in the last decade to try and disrupt any kind of work… Nothing was proven. They cannot prove anything because there were no wrongdoings in the way my companies functioned.”
Vadra also accused the BJP of raising the issue to distract attention from its own government’s failures.