Daily Bhaskar: Chandigarh: Saturday, March 24, 2012.
Ahmedabad: Congress MLA from Kodinar, Dhirsinh Barad, on Friday accused Gujarat finance minister Vajubhai Vala of acquiring a huge tract of land after getting his son’s name entered wrongly as a farmer in the agricultural records. Barad made this allegation while talking to reporters in the chamber of leader of opposition in the state assembly.
Barad said he had acquired, through RTI, documents which corroborated his allegations. “I have known Vajubhai for a long time. He didn’t have one guntha of agricultural land anywhere in Rajkot. But after his son, Chetan, got married to Meena, the daughter of Dipusinh Solanki (brother of BJP MP Dinu Bogha Solanki), the Solankis transferred, in 1996, around one hectare land of survey number 92 of Malshram village in Kodinar taluka to her name,” Barad said.
Vala has denied any wrongdoing. He, however, admitted that his son’s name was entered in the records as a farmer but the error was later corrected.
He further said that in the records of the land that was gifted to Meena, her husband, Chetan Vala's name was included as farmer in 1999, without following prescribed rules or taking the necessary permission from the collector. "The law says clearly that a person who is not a farmer or does not have agricultural land, cannot buy any agricultural land," Barad said. The Congress MLA alleged that this was a ploy to turn black money into white and buy agriculture land without any problem.
"If a woman is a farmer but her husband is not, even then he cannot enter his name in the land records of his wife. In fact, he cannot even become his wife's nominee or heir. If any person's name needs to be included in the land records, the person should have a certificate that he is a farmer," Barad said.
He further alleged that even after complaints, the name of Vala's son had not been removed from the records. In a statement denying Barad's allegations, Vala has admitted that his son, Chetan's name had been included in the records of the land registered in the name of Chetan' wife, Meena. "Meena had registered her husband's name in the records of the land which she had received from her father. But the circle officer of Kodinar had said that the matter (inclusion of Chetan's name) should be reconsidered as it had not been registered as per norms.
Hence, Meena had applied for removal of her husband's name. After that, Chetan's name was removed from the records by the competent officer on October 24, 2011," Vala has said in his statement. The state finance minister has further said that Chetan had not bought an inch of land anywhere in the state after 1999.
"Dhirsinh Barad is aware that Chetan's name has been removed from the records. Yet he is trying to mislead the people for political mileage. He had also asked a question about this matter in the previous session of the assembly," Vala has said.
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