JD-U serves ultimatum to BJP over land purchase

The JD-U today served an ultimatum to the BJP seeking answers to questions raised by it over large-scale land purchase it had made ahead of demonetisation, failing which it would approach the Income Tax department for a probe into the source of money used for buying the plots.
The one-day ultimatum was served by three state JD-U spokesmen Sanjay Singh, Niraj Kumar and Rajiv Ranjan Prasad at a joint press conference here.
"We will wait for answers from the BJP on questions raised by us on the land deal only for one day and after that we will approach the Income Tax department giving details of the large-scale land purchase under section 133 of the IT Act," they told reporters.

The JD-U leaders said they have collected details about purchase of land in 31 places in Bihar.
Instead of giving categorical answers to the questions, some BJP leaders opened their mouth but only made "baseless statements", the three claimed.
Stepping up its attack on BJP after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar questioned the silence of the saffron party on land purchase, the JD-U had recently rejected the defence of senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi and new state party chief Nityanand Rai that payments for land purchase were made through bank RTGS, and issued details of area of land bought, registration, name of sellers and sources of payment.

The JD(U) had claimed that for buying 22.38 decimal of land in Bagaha at a cost of Rs 66 lakh from Ravindra Nath Tiwari one-third payment was made in cash.

Similarly in case of purchase of 31.25 decimal land in Bhabhua in Kaimur district at Rs 48.75 lakh the entire payment was made in cash.
In Kisanganj, for 35 decimal of land a sum of Rs 15 lakh was paid in cash, the statement claimed, adding in Chapra the entire payment of Rs 48.90 lakh for 56.198 decimal land was made in cash.
In Sitamarhi the total amount of Rs 17.80 lakh for four decimal land was paid in cash.

In case of 42 decimal land in Sasaram out of a total payment of Rs 1.5 crore a sum of Rs 40 lakh was paid in cash.
The spokesmen also slammed the BJP over allegations of corruption against Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju in a hydel power project in his home state Arunachal Pradesh.