BJP accuses Congress MPs of diverting MPLAD funds to Hry

Jaipur: Three Rajasthan Congress MPs' decision to spend a portion of their local area development funds in the Haryana-based assembly constituency of Congress MP Randeep Surjewala's son kicked up a political storm on Monday after BJP's IT department chief Amit Malviya pointed to the alleged ‘anomaly'.Malviya claimed Congress MPs Rahul Kaswan of Churu, Sanjana Jatav of Bharatpur, and Brijendra Singh Ola of Jhunjhunu constituency recommended Rs 50 lakh, Rs 45.5 lakh, and Rs 24.7 lakh, respectively, for different works in Haryana's Kaithal constituency, which Surjewala's son Aditya Singh Surjewala represents in the Haryana legislature.
Works recommended by the Rajasthan MPs included construction of common covered sitting areas, public libraries, roads, classrooms in schools and colleges, community centres and halls, security gates in streets and energy-efficient crematoriums, among others.While Malviya described the ‘diversion' of funds as a "loot" of the people of Rajasthan, Kaswan,while speaking to TOI, said he had exercised his constitutional right to recommend works anywhere in the country."There is no bigger fraud party than Congress. This time, it is looting the people of Rajasthan. All this happened in just the last three to four months. This is not development. This is nepotism, favouritism and an open loot of public money," Malviya said on X.In response, Kaswan told TOI, "My job is to recommend funds for work in my constituency, district or anywhere else. The execution and implementation part of the fund is the job of the district administration and ministry concerned," and demanded that the Union govt increase the MPLAD corpus.According to an August 2024 directive by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, the nodal authority for the MPLAD programme, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs can recommend development works of upto Rs 50 lakh anywhere in the country outside their constituencies, except in cases of natural calamities, in which case the amont recommended may be higher.TOI attempted to contact Jatav and Ola for comment, but they could not be reached. The Congress MPs' decision to fund works in Haryana also led to a political storm in Rajasthan with Minister of State for Home, Jawahar Singh Bedham, accusing the three MPs of of using development funds for political gains. "The people of Rajasthan gave them votes but they are giving money to Haryana for development," he said.Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly, Tikaram Jully, meanwhile, said action should be initiated if any MP is found to have acted outside the rules, and called for an investigation into the issue.