Bribe case: Congress suspends father-son leaders from Vadodara for six years

Vadodara: Gujarat Congress has today announced suspension of its two district level leaders Satish Upadhyay and his son Abhishek Upadhayay from the party for the period of six years. Satish Upadhyay is husband of Nilaben Upadhyay who is Congress ruled Vadodara district panchayat Health committee chairman. Son Abhishek Upadhyay is general secretary of Vadodar district Congress unit.

Anti Corruption Bureau(ACB) had held father son while receiving Rs 1 lakh bribe from a farmer for Non Agriculture conversion to agriculture land.

District Panchayats have role in conversion of agricultural land into Non Agriculture(NA). This has become major cause of corruption in district panchayats. Thanks to Patidar quota agitation which openly campaigned for Congress party in year 2015 district/taluka panchayat polls, Congress was elected to power in many district panchayat bodies across Gujarat. Vadodara district is one such district where Congress is in power.

According to ACB, one farmer Piyushbhai Patel from Pachhiyapura village of Karjan taluka had applied for non agriculture conversion of his farming land for storage of sand. His application file was to be produced in district panchayat’s executive committee meeting for approval.

District panchayat health committee chairman Nilaben’s son and district Congress general secretary Abhishek Satish Upadhyay(Kapiman bungalow, Vaghodia-Dabhoi ring road, Vadodara) had sought Rs 1.5 lakh bribe from Piyushbhai for approval to NA file. After lot of bargaining, Rs 1 lakh bribe sum was finalized.

Piyushbhai passed this information to ACB following which trap was arranged. On Wednesday afternoon Piyush Patel called Abhishek Upadhyay to collect bribe money. Abhishek called his father Satish Manhar Upadhyay and asked him to collect Rs 1 lakh from Piyush near Narayan High School. Saish Upadhyay followed his son’s instruction and reached Narayan High School in his Maruti Swift car to collect money where he was caught by ACB sleuths.

Upadhyay is very close to former Congress MP and MoS in Centre Naran Rathwa.

Police arrested father son in this case.

It should be mentioned that Nilaben Upadhyay was seeking Congress party ticket to contest from Karjan assembly seat this year.

DeshGujarat