BJP defends MP CM Mohan Yadav amid land purchases probe, official records contradict party claims

The Bharatiya Janata Party has defended Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav against allegations concerning land purchases by his family and their real estate firms, following an investigation by The Indian Express. However, the party has not addressed the investigation's key findings that the Yadav family's land holdings doubled between 2021 and 2023, when Yadav was a Minister, and again between 2024 and 2025 after he became Chief Minister.

National convener of the BJP's IT cell Amit Malviya, state BJP president Hemant Khandelwal, and state government ministers dismissed the allegations as "baseless… bereft of substance" and "politically motivated." In a post on X, 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.

According to The Indian Express investigation, Yadav's daughter-in-law Shalini purchased 12 plots measuring 10.35 acres near the junction of the upgraded Ujjain-Badnagar and Ujjain-Indore highways in Ujjain's Gangedi for Rs 1.03 crore in June-July 2025. The family's holdings overlap nearly every zone in Ujjain where land use was changed from agricultural to residential.

Shri Siddhivinayak Devcons Pvt Ltd, where Mohan Yadav and his wife Seema hold 47.3% and 25.5% stakes respectively, purchased at least three plots totalling 2.6 acres for Rs 1.43 crore in Ujjain's Sawarakhedi and Kasba Ujjain between December 2024 and March 2025. The company also sold at least 12 acres to 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 argued that the Ujjain Master Plan and details of future infrastructure development had been public since May 2023, months before Yadav became Chief Minister in December 2023. He asked, "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?"

However, records show that Yadav's son Vaibhav Yadav and Mangalmurti Infra purchased at least 30 acres for Rs 9.46 crore in Sawarakhedi, where farmland was opened for development in the 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 afterwards.

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 CM are located near these new road links and highways. Of the total 168 acres, about 111 acres are alongside highway and road projects announced by the Yadav government, concentrated in Gangedi, Unhel, Jaiwantpur and Chandesara villages.