Had decided 2 years ago to buy land to build party offices: BJP

KOLKATA: Refuting allegations by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the purchase of huge tracts of land by BJP ahead of demonetisation, Siddharth Nath Singh today said it was a decision taken by BJP two years ago to buy land for building party offices in each district of the country.

The BJP national secretary also urged Banerjee to stop "harbouring perceptions" about the hardships caused due to demonetisation.

"She should stop hallucinating that hardships are being caused by demonetisation. When the entire country had supported demonetisation, she is opposing it for her vested interests. She should stop blabbering lies, false statements and canards," he said.

Terming the allegations raised by Banerjee that the BJP had brought huge land assets months before demonetisation move as "baseless", Singh said the Chief Minister should first look into the assets of her own party colleagues, who have "amassed fortunes by siphoning off money in chit fund scams".

"The allegations are completely baseless. We have proper papers for everything. Secondly, the decision to buy land was taken by our party leadership two years back. We had then decided that we needed to have party offices in every district of the country. So in order to build a party office, you need to have land," Singh reasoned.

Reacting to Banerjee's claim that a financial emergency had been imposed and that the country was being run in an "arbitrary way", the BJP leader asked, "She is questioning Prime Minister, but what is her credibility?"

Banerjee had demanded a probe by a Supreme Court judge into the assets bought by BJP months before demonetisation was announced. She had said there were "reports and proof" of how the BJP purchased the huge tracts of land and deposited large amounts of money in accounts held by it before ban on old high-value bills was announced on November 8.

The TMC supremo had also staged a sit-in in Delhi on November 23 and met President Pranab Mukherjee on the issue.