Meham MLA Kundu alleges Rs 3,300-crore ‘scam’ in sugar mills, blames BJP leader

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, January 24

The tiff between Independent MLA from Meham Balraj Kundu and former Haryana Minister of State for Cooperatives and senior BJP leader Manish Grover got murkier on Friday, with Kundu levelling serious allegations of corruption and nepotism against Grover and the latter sending a legal notice for criminal defamation to the MLA.

Kundu convened a Press conference here today, during which he alleged that losses amounting to Rs 3,300 crore suffered by state’s cooperative sugar mills were actually a scam involving the former minister and his family members whose firms had business interests in treacle (sheera) and country-made liquor.

“During his tenure as Cooperatives Minister, Grover extended massive financial benefits to certain companies of his daughter-in-law and other family members in sale of treacle by sugar mills at low prices and inordinate hike in the price of country-made liquor, thereby causing losses amounting to thousands of crores of rupees to the state exchequer,” he maintained, demanding a high-level probe into the matter.

The MLA reiterated allegations of Grover’s hand in instigating riots during the Jat agitation for grant of reservation witnessed in February 2016. He also accused the BJP leader of favouring his near and dear ones in allocation of lease/contract of a parking complex and community centre in Rohtak.

Expressing surprise over the silence of former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda over Grover’s corrupt activities, Kundu said he would apprise the state leadership of all scams involving the former minister along with corroborating and clinching evidence.

Addressing a Press conference later in the day to announce the induction of newly elected Rohtak Zila Parishad chairman Satish Bhalauth into the BJP, Grover refused to comment on the serious and personal charges levelled against him by the Meham MLA. On being prodded, the minister got up and walked away.

However, in the evening, the former minister’s aides called up newsmen and informed that Grover had sent a notice of criminal defamation to Kundu, in which he had been asked to apologise for his ‘wild and concocted’ allegations levelled against the BJP leader at a recent Press conference, failing which legal proceedings would be initiated against him.

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