Congress on Monday staged a walkout from the Madhya Pradesh Assembly demanding constitution of an MLAs committee to probe the alleged mortgage of farmer’s land worth Rs 2.18 lakh crore by state’s top cooperative bank, Apex Bank.
The issue was raised during ‘Question Hour’ by Congress MLA Prabhuram Choudhry who claimed that the bank tried to mortgage farmer’s land worth over Rs 2.18 lakh crore and its own land worth Rs 1,699 crore to a foreign firm Speed Star Agency, but was prevented from doing so due to the alertness of the NABARD.
Replying on the issue, the State’s Cooperative Minister, Gaurishankar Bisen said as soon as the matter came to light the government handed over the case to the State’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) for probe and its report is awaited.
However, Deputy Leader of the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) Choudhry Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi, senior MLAs Ajay Singh and Ramniwas Rawat among others demanded from Speaker Ishwardas Rohani, the formation of an MLAs committee or a judicial panel for probing the issue.
The Chair then asked the government whether the demand was acceptable to it following which Bisen said that since the EOW is already probing the case, no question of forming an MLAs committee for the purpose arose.
Dissatisfied with the Minister’s reply, the Congress staged a walkout. Later talking to reporters, Chaturvedi and Singh said they would continue to raise the issue till their demand is met.
