15-acre land, a cancelled lease, and upset Brahmins pit BJP MP against CM

“The work of giving the land to the community should have been completed in just two hours but was delayed. It should be probed. The Prime Minister Office can probe this matter. This probe should take place with the intervention of the Prime Minister,” Sharma had said.

Congress MLA from Rohtak BB Batra too raised the issue on Friday.

On their part, the authorities said that the land lease was cancelled after the Gaur Brahman Vidya Pracharini Sabha failed to fulfil the conditions. They alleged that attempts are being made to give the issue an “unnecessary political colour” even when the government was considering the demand for restoration of the land lease sympathetically. According to Rohtak Municipal Corporation, now the Sabha wants to deposit Rs 11.40 lakh of nine installments (2014-22) and the department concerned will soon take call on it.

The issue began in 2009, when, the then panchayat of the Brahmin-dominated Pahrawar village proposed to donate the land to the community for social welfare activities. The state government gave the land to the Sabha on a lease of 33 years. According to officials, the Sabha did not initiate construction activities on the land for the next two years. The Rohtak Municipal Corporation issued repeated letters to the Sabha while asking reasons for the delay in the construction work apart from issuing warnings of action.

In 2014, the Sabha offered to deposit Rs 1.25 lakh as lease money installment but the civic body returned the money stating the construction work was not initiated in the stipulated time. The municipal corporation also issued a notice to the Sabha.

According to officials, the Sabha also did not deposit the development charges to the Haryana Urban Development Authority.

A civic body spokesperson said: “The tenure of Gaur Brahman Vidya Pracharini Sabha ended on February 6, 2011 and the land lease stands cancelled automatically.”

On April 23 this year, Naveen Jaihind, a former president of state unit of the Aam Aadmi Party, brought in an excavator to remove a municipal corporation board placed at the site and claimed the land for the community. “The members of the Brahmin community are running from pillar to post but the government has not handed over the land to them. Now, Rs 8 crore (as development charges) are being sought from them. We are not going to give a penny to the government,” said Jaihind.

Jaihind also called a panchayat of Brahmins at Pahrawar asking 1,000 members of the community to bring along a brick and an axe to the programme on May 22.

According to a senior BJP leader from the Brahmin community, it was probably the first time the community had engaged in a show of strength in the public while displaying the axe, or farsa, which is the symbol of “Brahmin icon” Parshuram (the sixth incarnation of Hindu god Vishnu).

BJP MP Sharma, Congress MLA Kuldeep Vats, JJP MLA Ramkumar Gautam and Independent MLA Balraj Kundu also participated in the event. In the panchayat, Sharma, a four-time MP who had defeated Deepender Singh Hooda in Rohtak in the 2019 Assembly polls, insisted that Haryana needs a chief minister from the Brahmin community while calling Khattar a CM who “doesn’t do any work by applying his own mind”. An aspirant for the CM post, Sharma also accused Khattar of not taking prompt action in restoring the lease of the land for the community in Pahrawar village. He alleged: “(a former state minister and close associate of Khattar) Manish Grover had told him (CM) ‘the letter should not be issued right now.’.

On his part, Grover held a press conference in Rohtak recently but avoided comments on Sharma’s remarks against him and the CM. Grover said: “He (Arvind) has to explain what type of certificate he wants to give.”

Asked if it indicates groupism in the party, Grover said: “I have already completed 50 years in politics. I work only for the lotus (BJP’s poll symbol) and will keep working for it till last.”

The BJP leader said: “This is the case of 2009 but in the past 13 years nobody raised a demand for this land. This demand has been raised spontaneously. Still the CM said he would give the land to the Gaur Sabha after rectifying the shortcomings. We will give the land to the Brahmin community 100 per cent. We (Grover, Sharma) had met the CM. He (Sharma) was also satisfied after meeting the CM. Those who want to do politics, they can do the same. Our work is to do the service of people.”

Targetting Khattar, Sharma said on Thursday that when an inquiry takes place, “I will disclose how an officer, who was supposed to give this land, had told me that ‘the CM has said that the land is to be given but not right now’.”

Sharma also said that the Brahmin community will hold a rally in August -September. “We will keep showing our strength.”