As the Congress stepped up its attack on Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav over The Indian Express investigation on land purchases by his family and their real estate firms, national convener of the BJP’s IT cell Amit Malviya, BJP state president Hemant Khandelwal and ministers of the Madhya Pradesh government dismissed the allegations as “baseless… bereft of substance” and “politically motivated.”
However, the party is silent on the investigation’s key findings that the Yadav family’s land holdings doubled between 2021 and 2023, when Mohan Yadav was a Minister, and doubled again between 2024 and 2025 after he became Chief Minister.
In a post on X Thursday, Malviya said: “The entire edifice of allegations built around The Indian Express report rests on the insinuation that Mohan Yadav or his family benefitted from privileged access to information after he became Chief Minister. But even a cursory examination of the facts exposes how baseless and bereft of substance this campaign really is.”
As “the most crucial fact,” Malviya claimed that “the land holdings of the Chief Minister and his immediate family have not increased since he assumed office as Chief Minister.”
Official records contradict this claim.
What the BJP claims vs what the facts reflect.
As reported by The Indian Express, Mohan Yadav’s daughter-in-law Shalini purchased 12 plots measuring 10.35 acres, close to the junction of the upgraded Ujjain-Badnagar and Ujjain-Indore highways in Ujjain’s Gangedi, for Rs 1.03 crore in June-July 2025.
Shri Siddhivinayak Devcons Pvt Ltd, where Mohan Yadav and wife Seema hold 47.3 percent and 25.5 percent respectively, also purchased at least three plots measuring a total of 2.6 acres for Rs 1.43 crore in Ujjain’s Sawarakhedi and Kasba Ujjain between December 2024 and March 2025.
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Shri Siddhivinayak Devcons Pvt Ltd also sold at least 12 acres to Mohan Yadav’s first cousin Nilesh for Rs 6.01 crore in Ujjain’s Dhediya in September 2024. Nilesh is developing a housing project under the Sawariya brand on this land.
Malviya further wrote that the Ujjain Master Plan and details of the city’s future infrastructure development had been in the public domain since May 2023, months before Yadav became Chief Minister in December that year.
“If the roadmap for roads, urban expansion and infrastructure projects was publicly known, where is the question of any insider advantage accruing to the Chief Minister or anyone else after he took office?” he argued.
Of the 168 acres purchased, around 111 acres are located alongside highway and road projects announced by the Yadav government. Key land parcels are concentrated in Gangedi, Unhel, Jaiwantpur and Chandesara villages.
Records show that CM’s son Vaibhav Yadav and Mangalmurti Infra purchased at least 30 acres for Rs 9.46 crore in Sawarakhedi, where farmland was opened up for development in Ujjain Master Plan 2035, in March-April 2023 – weeks before the document was made public in May 2023. The family continued acquiring land in these zones in the months that followed.
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The investigation also reported that while some infrastructure projects were already under consideration, Mohan Yadav announced a slew of road projects after becoming Chief Minister. Nearly two-thirds of the 168 acres purchased by the family in Ujjain after Yadav became the chief minister are re-located near these new road links and highways.
Earlier this week, state BJP chief Khandelwal termed the Congress charges “completely baseless, factually incorrect and politically motivated”. He said that in the affidavit filed by Yadav for the 2023 Assembly elections declared all land holding in his name and that of his wife, which has not increased since. He further stated that the 16 acres of land owned by Yadav’s son Vaibhav Yadav before 2023 had also not increased after Yadav became Chief Minister.
On Shri Siddhivinayak Devcons Pvt Ltd where Yadav and wife Seema own 73 per cent stake, Khandelwal said the firm owned around 68 acres during the 2023 Assembly elections and that its holdings had since reduced to approximately 65 acres. He claimed that Mohan Yadav had no connection with the company’s current activities since he had resigned as a director of the company in 2017.
Khandelwal added that relatives of the Chief Minister conduct their businesses and financial activities independently and that linking their private transactions or businesses to Yadav was “factually incorrect”.
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Madhya Pradesh PWD Minister Rakesh Singh, however, said that he had “no objection” to the Congress demand for an investigation. “If someone raises a call for an investigation, then there should be one. There is no objection to that. …I think that if there are properties which have been accumulated illegally, then that should also come forward,” he said.
On June 23, The Indian Express reported that Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and his family acquired, either directly or through one of their real estate companies, at least 85 acres of land in Ujjain between 2021 and 2023, when Yadav served as education minister. The report further stated that they purchased at least 168 additional acres between 2024 and 2025 after Yadav became chief minister.
The Indian Express also found that the Yadav family owned at least another 82 acres in Ujjain, either as longstanding holdings or properties whose acquisition dates could not be determined.
Even assuming the family’s 82 acres of longstanding or undated holdings were already owned by 2020, their land holding doubled to 167 acres during 2021-2023 after Yadav became a minister. This further doubled to 335 acres during 2024-2025 after Yadav became the chief minister.
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The Indian Express report said that CM Yadav and wife Seema owned 17 and 11 acres, respectively, in their name, which was declared in Yadav’s election affidavit in 2023. They co-own at least another 27.5 acres through Shri Siddhivinayak Devcons Pvt Ltd, a company where they hold 73% stake.
The Indian Express also reported that weeks before Ujjain master Plan 2023 was released in May 2023, the Yadav family purchased at least 30 acres in Sawarakhedi in March-April 2023. Of the 168 acres purchased in 2024-25, 111 acres are close to new road links and highways, and 33 acres are in areas opened up for residential or commercial use in the new master plan.
Detailed queries sent by The Indian Express to Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and his office on April 13 remain unanswered.
