Balvantsinh Khabad, the son of Gujarat minister Bachu Khabad, was arrested by the Dahod police on Saturday. He is suspected to be involved in a scam worth Rs 75 crore related to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the Devgadh Baria and Dhanpur areas of Dahod district. Bachu Khabad is the minister of state for panchayat and agriculture.
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Balvantsinh and his younger brother Kiran had earlier asked for anticipatory bail (a legal protection from arrest), but they withdrew those requests recently.
According to Jagdish Bhandari, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Dahod, Balvantsinh was arrested after the initial investigation found his involvement. The investigation showed that a company run by Balvantsinh, which supplies materials for MGNREGA projects, submitted bills for goods that were not fully delivered. The police are still investigating how much money was actually involved in the fraud. Kiran has not been arrested yet, but the police are checking his role in the scam.
The police registered the First Information Report (FIR) on April 24. The FIR says that some companies that did not win the contracts were still given the work by avoiding the proper process, and their bills were paid. It also says that some bills were cleared for projects that existed only on paper but were never done in real life. Villagers from Kuva village in Devgadh Baria had reported this scam to the officials.
Earlier, the Dahod police arrested five people connected to this scam. These include two accountants from the MGNREGA office, Jayveer Nagori and Mahipalsinh Chauhan; two local workers Kuldeep Baria and Mangalsinh Pateliya; and a technical assistant Manish Patel.
Congress leader Amit Chavda has asked the government to form a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate this case properly. He criticized the current government, saying corruption has been a common problem for 30 years under BJP rule. He said the Congress party has repeatedly raised this issue but no proper action was taken. Chavda believes that an SIT will uncover even bigger names involved in the scam.
