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Madhya Pradesh: After his BJP entry, forgery case against Jyotiraditya Scindia closed

Scindia quit Congress to join the BJP, this triggered a revolt in the party unit, with 22 MLAs also resigning which eventually led to the fall of the govt.

New Delhi| The Madhya Pradesh Economic Offences Wing has closed a case against former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and his family members, where they were accused of falsifying a property document while selling land, an official said on Tuesday.

Scindia quit the Congress on March 10 and later joined the BJP. His resignation from the Congress triggered a revolt in the Madhya Pradesh party unit, with 22 MLAs who belong to his camp also tendering their resignations. This led to the collapse of the Kamal Nath-led state government last week.

On March 12, when the Congress was in power in the state, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) decided to verify facts afresh into the complaint against Scindia and his family of allegedly indulging in wrongdoing while selling land in Gwalior in 2009.

Soon after the political crisis began, Gwalior-based Surendra Shrivastava reached the headquarters of EOW in Bhopal and submitted a fresh complaint alleging that Scindia and family members had falsified land documents.

Shrivastava claimed that he had filed those complaints in 2014 but the EOW closed the cases in 2018 without assigning any reasons.

When he filed an RTI application, he was told the information was ā€œconfidentialā€ and canā€™t be shared. In 2014, BJP was in power and Shivraj Singh Chouhan was the chief minister.

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“The complainant, Surendra Shrivastava, approached us for the second time on March 12 seeking a re-look into his complaint against Scindias. We forwarded the complaint to our Gwalior office which, after a re-investigation, closed it,” a top EOW official said.

The EOW accepted his complaints but did not register any case saying it was verifying facts. Scindia supporters had alleged that the Congress government was trying to open a case that was wound up for lack of evidence due to ā€œpolitical vendettaā€.

Shrivastava said he would now move courts with all the documents in his possession. He had alleged that the previous investigation was closed because Scindia used his clout.

Earlier this month, 22 MLAs loyal to Scindia resigned from the Congress, paving way for the BJP to come to power in the state again. Senior BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as chief minister of the state on Monday night.

(Input from agencies)

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