Vadra booked, Congress alleges witch-hunt by Modi
New Delhi, Sep 2 : The Congress on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched a "vicious and malicious witch-hunt" by filing cases against former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Robert Vadra, brother-in-law of party chief Rahul Gandhi, for a controversial 2008 land deal in Gurugram.
The Congress said it was being done to divert attention from the corruption saga of Rafale deal, demonetisation, Rs 12 lakh crore loot through hike in fuel prices, failure to create two crore jobs every year, rapidly falling rupee and failing economy and complete failure of the BJP government.
"A new set of manufactured lies is being served through false and fake FIRs against political opponents," said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.
"As elections to the four states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram along with the general elections draw near, the fake news factory and dirty tricks department of the Modi government-BJP act maliciously in pursuit of their vicious propaganda."
Denying any wrongdoing, Surjewala said Skylight Hospitality of Vadra purchased land measuring 3.5 acres on January 28, 2008 in the notified commercial zone of Sikohpur in Gurugram through a registered sale-deed for Rs 7.95 crore, including stamp duties.
"In accordance with the prevailing government policy for grant of licence, a commercial licence for 2.5 acres was granted on December 15, 2008.
"After a lapse of nearly five years, this land was sold by Skylight to DLF for Rs 58 crore on September 18, 2012. Even on this amount, Skylight/Vadra paid an additional tax of Rs 8 crore.
"A total amount of Rs 24.11 crore was paid in statutory charges/taxes against the receipt of sale price of Rs 58 crore. Even the licence remains valid till date and has not been cancelled on account of violation of any rule or law or policy for grant of licence. The allegations are false and fabricated on the face of it."
Soorjewala said the malice of Modi-BJP government was apparent from the fact that various governments in Haryana, including the BJP and BJP-Lok Dal governments, had issued licences for 33,697.57 acres of land, including over 11,000 acres in Gurugram alone.
The Manohan Lal Khattar government in Haryana has itself given licences of over a few thousand acres for change of land use to commercial-residential-institutional purposes in the last more than four years, said Surjewala.
"If grant of a licence is wrong, as is being alleged in the FIR, should a similar FIR then be not lodged against Khattar and others for giving commercial and other licences under the same policy?"
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
