Dholpur Palace Belongs to Government, Not Vasundhara Raje"s Family, Says Congress

New Delhi:  The Congress today alleged that Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, her son Dushyant Singh and former IPL chief Lalit Modi had illegally converted the Dholpur Palace – a government property –  into a luxury hotel.

The Dholpur Mahal was declared government property six times between 1954 and 2010, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, holding up documents that he said proved that the palace has not been with Ms Raje’s family for six decades.

Mr Ramesh said Ms Raje’s estranged husband had told a court in 1980 that the palace wasn’t personal property. “Niyant Private Limited, owned by Ms Raje, her son Dushyant Singh, daughter-in-law Niharaika Singh and Lalit Modi, has taken possession of a Rajasthan government property, converted it into a private high-end luxury hotel and invested over Rs.100 crore,” he alleged.

Dholpur Palace occupies a key place in business dealings between Lalit Modi and Dushyant Singh.

In 2007, Mr Modi had loaned Dushyant Singh’s firm Rs 3 crore. He also bought shares of the firm, paying Rs 96,000 for each share priced Rs 10. Ms Raje had allegedly defended the deal, saying he paid the big bucks for equity in her son’s firm because the real estate value of the Raje family’s assets, including its ancestral palace, was worth more than Rs.300 crore.

Dushyant Singh’s tax returns filed in 2013, however, showed the family palace was not an asset of his firm, but in the name of a dependent – its value was declared as Rs. 16 crore.

“This is a private-private partnership to manage a public property, without any revenues accruing to the Government of Rajasthan. This is a bizarre PPP,” Mr Ramesh said today.

The Narendra Modi government, he said, “cannot run away from reality”. “It is not a question of if Vasundhara Raje will quit as Rajasthan chief minister, but when and how,” he added.

The BJP claimed the government had restored the Dholpur Palace to Dushyant Singh’s father Hemant Singh in 1958, after taking over his other palace, Kesar Bagh. In 2007, he had given it to Dushyant Singh by a settlement in court.

In 2010, the UPA government had recognized Dushyant Singh as the owner of the Dholpur Palace, the BJP said. He was paid compensation for 567 square yards taken from the palace grounds for building a highway.