NEW DELHI: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday indicated that the soon-to-be-formed BJP government in Haryana will order a probe into the land deals of Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra, in the first clear sign that BJP's takeover of power at the Centre and in states might impinge on the comfort of Congress's first family.
"I, prima facie, see a case where somebody starts with negligible capital, a certain amount of favours are granted to him, there are sweetheart deals as a result of which within a matter of months or years, a no-capital transaction helps him raise hundreds of crores of assets. This is not normal course of business, it is a little out of ordinary," Jaitley told a TV channel, putting an investigation into Vadra's land deals right on top of the agenda of Manohar Lal Khattar-led government which will be sworn in on September 26.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made Vadra's deals a major campaign issue in the just-concluded assembly elections, following through his party's attack on Sonia's controversial son-in-law during the Lok Sabha elections.
Jaitley's remarks were the first strong indication that the regime change in Haryana could have direct consequences for Vadra. While the BJP government in Rajasthan is already probing Vadra's land transactions in the state, it is his deals in Haryana which are seen as more vulnerable to probe by an unsympathetic government.
