Ayodhya BJP MLA, mayor in list of 40 linked to illegal land deals | Lucknow News

While ADA vice-chairman Vishal Singh confirmed that the authority issued this list on Sunday, both Gupta and Upadhyay have refuted allegations against them and threatened to sue the authority officials for defamation.
“We have identified 40 locations as illegally developed colonies so far. However, the number could be much higher. We are working to make Ayodhya a clean and corruption-free city so that it could be ready to become a world class city,” ADA V-C Singh told TOI.
The price of land has shot up many folds in the temple town after it became a hot destination for religious tourists in view of the November 2019 Supreme Court’s order in favour of construction of the Ram temple. Last year, there were allegations of illegal transaction of land and the opposition parties had even accused the temple trust of being involved in these deals.
Although the trust vehemently denied its link with any such deal, the ADA has now come up with the list of illegal colonisers. Faizabad BJP MP Lallu Singh, too, wrote a letter last month to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, demanding an SIT probe against the ‘land mafia’ active in Ayodhya.
“The land mafia in Ayodhya is so powerful that they have created illegal plots on government nazul land and even on river banks. They are misleading people and selling plots at very high rates, just in the name of Ayodhya,” Singh has written in his letter.
The MP has also demanded action against some ‘former government officers’ of Ayodhya for being involved in the corruption of illegal land deals.
Reacting to the senior party leaders being named in the list of illegal colonisers, Ayodhya’s BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Singh said: “No one, irrespective of their posts, will be spared. The CM will take strict action for all illegal works done in Ayodhya.”
BJP leader Mahant Raju Das, who is also a priest at Hanumangarhi temple of Ayodhya, has demanded a CBI enquiry against land mafia in Ayodhya. He also said that names of some government officials should also be on the list as they, too, are involved in illegal transactions of land.
When TOI contacted MLA Ved Praksh Gupta and mayor Rishikesh Upadhyay, they said that all allegations against them were false, and they would send a legal notice to ADA for defamation.