Congress leader and Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot’s brother Agrasain Gehlot has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate for questioning in a money laundering case in connection with the multi-crore fertiliser scam. He has been asked to appear before the department in Jaipur, on Monday, September 27 at 11 am.
In 2020, the Enforcement Directorate had filed a money laundering case against Agrasain Gehlot and others in connection with the case. Agrasain is the elder brother of Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot.
In July last year, the Enforcement Directorate had conducted raids at multiple premises of Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s brother in connection with the aforementioned scam, in which the Congress leader’s brother is accused of diverting more than 35,000 metric tonnes of Muriate of Potash also known as Potassium Chloride -a restricted commodity for exports, having a value of Rs 130 crore which was actually meant for the farmers.
The raids were conducted at six places in Rajasthan, including Jodhpur, two places in West Bengal, four in Gujarat and one in Delhi.
130 crore fertilizer scam
According to an exclusive report by OpIndia, the Commissioner of Customs accused Agrasain Gehlot, Ashok Gehlot’s brother, of selling Muriate of Potash (MOP) – a soil nutrient used in non-urea fertilisers – to a middleman who then put fake labels of ‘industrial salt’ on MOP and exported it to buyers in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia and other international markets.
According to the commissioner’s judgement, Gehlot was a willing participant in this syndicate that functioned between 2007 and 2009, when the UPA ran both Rajasthan and the Union governments.
As per the documents accessed by OpIndia, Gehlot made all payments in cash, an account of which was not proper in the books.
The person acting as the middleman in this whole syndicate was known to Agrasain Gehlot. Gehlot was the custodian of subsidised imported MOP and he knew that it was an offence to sell it to anyone other than farmers, but he manipulated sales documents of his firm to show that MOP was being sold to farmers while in reality it was being subsequently exported, as per reports.
