After the bureaucrats, skeletons are now tumbling out of the cupboards of politicians. Close on the heels of a raid on the residence of two Principal Secretary level IAS officers that unearthed Rs. 3 crores in cash, high-profile Cabinet Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya has been found to be involved in a murky land deals. Vijayvargiya holds the Industries portfolio and hails from Indore—the State's commercial Capital.

Only recently (February '10), he rubbed shoulders with the BJP top brass. He was the chief host of the BJP's national executive meeting, held at Indore.

Before entering the Assembly and being inducted into the Council of Ministers, Vijayvargiya was the Mayor of Indore. A questionable land deal, which was struck when Vijayvargiya was Mayor, has hit the headlines because of a Court case filed by Suresh Seth, a veteran Congress leader of Indore.

Prior to this, Vijayvargiya's name had also figured in a Rs. 3000 crore Social Security Pension scam, in which fake pension cards were made and thousands of non-existent destitutes drew their monthly pension from banks.

The latest is his alleged involvement in the sale of Rs. 100 crore worth of Municipal land in 2004, when he was the Mayor. His co-accused is Ramesh Mendola, presently BJP MLA and a close aide of Vijayvargiya. At that time, Mendola too was in the Municipal Corporation, as member of Mayor-in-council. Additionally, Municipal Corporation officials and all the (then) 69 Councilors have also been made accused in the case.

The three-acre piece of prime land was allotted to an Industrial Unit in 1980 on lease for a period of 30 years. The lease is to end later this year. However, in 2004, the industrial unit sold the land — then worth Rs. 65 crores — to a Housing Co-operative headed by Mendola for a measly Rs. 1.28 crores. It was not long before that Mendola applied for change of land use from Industrial to Residential and his request was granted by the Municipal Corporation in a jiffy. He went on to build a posh residential complex on the land.

Many illegalities were involved in the deal. To begin with, as a lessee, the industrial unit had no right to sell the land and neither did the Municipal Corporation have the right to allow the sale. The Corporation also did not have the right to change the land use. What makes the illegal deal suspicious is the fact that the land changed hands at a price less than two percent of its market value.

The 79-year-old former Congress minister Suresh Seth, who meticulously collected all the details about the deal using RTI, first approached the state Economic Offences Wing, seeking a probe. When nothing moved for a year, he filed a private complaint in an Indore court. The court has found substance in the complaint and has ordered the State Lokayukta to probe the matter. The Lokayukta has already begun the probe.

Following the development, vociferous demands are being made for Vijayvargiya's dismissal from the ministry. Besides the main opposition Congress, a section of the ruling BJP too is keen to use this opportunity to edge out Vijayvargiya.

Vijayvargiya is also not in the good books of the Chief Minister. In fact, he is widely regarded as Chauhan's political rival. But it would not be easy for Chauhan to get rid of Vijayvargiya.

Vijayvargiya enjoys the support of a powerful section of the RSS. In the Sadhvi Pragya Thakur case, he had openly assured the “Hindu terrorists”, based at Indore, of his full support.

At the same time, his rivals in the BJP, including former Union minister and Lok Sabha member from Indore Ms. Sumitra Mahajan will not like this opportunity to go by. As for the chief minister, he would love to show Vijayvargiya the door. However, before that he would need the approval of the party high command and may be, even of the RSS. The minister, of course, is in no mood to quit. “I have done nothing wrong”, he insists. (IPA)