Following dna's report, BJP minister Girish Mahajan met Dalit farmer Harish Tayade late on Friday night and agreed to transfer the ownership of 4.97acre of land in a few days.
Mahajan had bought the land from the farmer on pretext of setting up a sugar mill and promising jobs to his kin. However, the sugar mill did not see the day of the light in last 15 years.
The water resource minister had bought the land for Rs1.11 lakh in 2002 from the Tayade family at Manpur (Bhusawal) in North Maharashstra. He, however, landed in controversy when it was revealed that this same property was not mentioned in the state assembly election's affidavit of 2004, 2009 and 2014.
"I met him (Mahajan) at his residence at Jamner (Jalgaon) on Friday. He was in a hurry but agreed to transfer the ownership and hand over the land as early as possible. He also told me that he is busy with some issues and once it gets sorted, he will come to Jalgaon and return the land," said Tayade.
dna tried to contact to Mahajan, but he was unavailable for comments. After meeting the BJP minister, Tayade said that he is now confident that the BJP minister will not change his mind. "Earlier, I tried to meet him but in vain. But the local BJP corporators, who are my friend, facilitated our meeting. It was short but successful," he claimed.
"I also wanted to ask the minister whether to start cultivating the land? But minister was busy and occupied so I could not ask. The monsoon has started and our land has been unutilised for last 15 years. If the minister starts the process early, then we may able to cultivate our land and this year itself, we can get the good crops as well," Tayade added.
"Our entire family is happy that we are getting back our land. Something like this hardly happens. We are grateful to everyone. We have no animosity against the minister and his party. We are only concerned about our land only.
Once again, we will be land holding farmers. We are waiting for the day to come true. We hope with the return of the land, our current situation will also change and good days will come again," Tayade concluded.
