The Shiromani Akali Dal on Tuesday said Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh must tell Punjabis why he had become party to giving a clean chit to benami deals of Irrigation and Power Minister Rana Gurjit Singh by appointing a personal favourite of the Minister to head the one commission to probe acquisition of sand and gravel mines of servants and employees of the minister.
In a statement here, SAD MP and secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa said Rana Gurjit enjoyed close relations with Justice (retd) JS Narang. “It is now clear that Rana Gurjit did not visit Capt Amarinder to offer his resignation but to suggest appointment of a friendly commission which would exonerate him of the charges of corruption, nepotism and benami transactions in acquisition of sand and gravel mines through e-auction recently.
The Akali leader said Rana Gurjit was digging his own grave by putting up new front men to escape the long arm of the law. “Earlier he had put up his cook Amit Bahadur who successfully bid Rs 26 crore for a sand mine besides three other employees who together made bids of Rs 50 crore. Now he has put up the name of a son of a ‘businessman friend’ — Capt JS Randhawa and claimed that Randhawa’s companies put up the money for the bids and that his cook and employees were working partners only in these companies”.
He said this was unbelievable because of the sheer fact that Capt Randhawa lived in Rana’s house. “Rana is Randhawa and Randhawa is Rana. In such a situation how can anyone believe Rana’s contentionsIJ This is a clear case of benaami transactions. What needs to be probed is the source of the money, the money trail and verification of hawala transactions if any. All these are specialised jobs which only the Enforcement Directorate (ED) or Income Tax authorities are equipped to do”, he added.
Dhindsa said recent revelations had also made it clear that this was not the first time that Rana had used his Nepalese cook to facilitate benami transactions. “The cook Amit Bahadur, who has Rs 4,000 in his current account, is a Director of three companies one of whom even shares the same e mail address as that of a company of Rana Gurjit. Even the addresses of these companies are not genuine with one of them shown to be housed in a kid’s show room in Chandigarh. All this proves beyond reasonable doubt that Rana is in a habit of using Amit Bahadur as a front man for dubious deals”.
Dhindsa said in case the Chief Minister failed to act despite the mounting evidence against Rana Gurjit, the SAD would take the issue to the people and initiate a mass movement to force the Congress government to sack the minister and launch proceedings against him as per the law.
