Now, Deshmukh gets notice for medical college land misuse

Nagpur: There’s more trouble in store for veteran Congress leader and former minister Ranjeet Deshmukh.
The district collector has served a notice to Vidya Shikshan Prasarak Mandal (VSPM), the education society founded by Deshmukh, asking why the 27-hectare land at Digdoh in Hingna given to the society on a nominal Re1 lease should not be taken back by the government. The society runs a private medical college and hospital on the land.

A few days ago, the district administration served a notice to the Deshmukhs stating that their residence, Bhaskar Bhavan in Civil Lines, will be attached for non-payment of bank loan taken from IDBI bank. The action for recovering bank dues totalling Rs5.70 crore was taken under the Secularisation Act.

The fresh notice served by district collector Sachin Kurve on February 15 has now left no one in doubt that the action being against the former state Congress president is a fallout of a political war that has broken out between his son, BJP MLA Ashish Deshmukh, and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.

“This is nothing but a vindictive action,” Ranjeet Deshmukh told TOI. He said as per the provisions of land lease, 15% of it could be used for commercial activity. “After the government started the action, we stopped all the commercial activities and shops have been closed,” he said, adding that he was being unnecessarily targeted for political actions of his son over which he has no control.

It could be more than a coincidence that the notice on land use surfaced just a day after Ashish Deshmukh, who is leading a farmers’ agitation in his constituency Katol, said that Fadnavis should resign if he has no time for suffering farmers in his (CM’s) home district.

Deshmukh continued the sit-in agitation for the 4th day. On Friday, former finance minister and another rebel BJP leader Yeshwant Sinha visited him and came out in his support.

As per the notice, Deshmukh has been given 7 days to show cause why the land should not revert to the government as it was being used for commercial purposes apart from educational use for which it was given in 1990 on a 30-year lease.

The lease period is coming to an end in a year or two and some documents appended by the collector with the notice shows that the action was initiated in 2016. There is a mention that parts of the land were used for commercial purposes like letting out to shops and so the land use needs to be modified officially.