Shiv Sena UBT, Congress will face action soon on 'Waqf scams', warns Sanjay Nirupam

New Delhi, April 13 (IANS) Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Nirupam on Sunday targeted both the Congress and Shiv Sena UBT for alleged financial and property wrongdoings, warning that the law would catch up with them soon.

In a message on social media platform X, Nirupam warned that Uddhav Thackeray’s party would face the heat of investigations into illegal properties.

He began his post by announcing that investigations into the Congress party’s alleged wrongdoings in the Waqf Board have reached a decisive stage.

The former Rajya Sabha MP also claimed that the Rs 700-crore property of National Herald, 'usurped' by the Congress, was also on the verge of being seized by the probe agency.

“Very soon, action is likely to be taken on the illegal properties of ‘Thackeray Waqf Board’,” wrote Nirupam in his message in Hindi.

Last month, Nirupam had raised the issue of appeasement and ‘Housing Jihad’ in Mumbai, accusing Muslim contractors involved in slum redevelopment of allotting houses to beneficiaries from their own community to boost the Muslim population in the city.

The Shiv Sena leader had claimed that some officials in the city were also in league with the Muslim redevelopers who were aiming to increase the Muslim population, through measures like settling illegal Bangladeshis.

On Sunday, when some social media users reacted to his post on X and called him a person with shifting loyalties, Nirupam shot back, “Sins of Congress are not going to get diluted by calling me a party switcher. Don’t be stereotyped, my dear! Think #NationalHerald.”

The former MP was in the Congress before switching to Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) last year. Before joining Congress, he had served in the undivided Shiv Sena as the editor of 'Dophar Ka Saamana', the Hindi mouthpiece of the Shiv Sena, in the 1990s.

Nirupam’s reference to the National Herald case came a day after the Enforcement Directorate stepped up efforts to seize properties worth Rs 661 crore belonging to Congress party-controlled Associated Journals Limited (AJL) in a money laundering case.

In Mumbai, a notice was also served by the ED on Jindal South West Projects Limited, which is occupying the 7th, 8th, and 9th floors at Herald House, Bandra (East). The company was directed to transfer the rent/lease amount every month in favour of the Director, Directorate of Enforcement.

Earlier, the ED conducted searches and seizures at multiple locations in Mumbai, Delhi and Lucknow, uncovering incriminating documents linked to the alleged money laundering activities in the AJL case.

Investigation revealed that Young Indian, a private company beneficially owned by Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, acquired AJL properties worth Rs 2,000 crore for a mere Rs 50 lakh, significantly undervaluing its worth.

--IANS

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