Madhya Pradesh: Congress MLA Manoj Chawla, associates booked for allegedly looting fertilisers

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Congress MLA from Alot constituency, Manoj Chwala and his associates were booked for allegedly looting fertilisers and obstructing government work in Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam district, an official said.

The incident occurred at a government warehouse in Alot town, Ratlam district on Thursday.

Ratlam Superintendent of Police (SP) Abhishek Tiwari said that the action was taken after the complaint from the manager of the warehouse. "MLA Chawla and his associates misbehaved with the staff, obstructed the government work and provoked people to loot fertiliser by opening the shutter of the warehouse," he said.

"According to the audit after the incident, a total of 21 sacks of fertilisers and six sacks of other ingredients were found missing. An FIR has been registered against MLA Chawla and one of his associates, Yogendra Singh Jadon. The rest of the persons involved in the incident are being identified on the basis of video and action will be taken against them accordingly," SP Tiwari said.

He further said, "We took the stock of the spot and found that there was no shortage of fertilisers in the district. In fact, around 29 metric tonnes of urea were distributed from the Alot centre before the incident and around 890 metric tonnes of urea were distributed in the entire district. Besides, if there is any glitch in the online process then it is distributed via offline mode."

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On the other hand, MLA Chawla said that he was continuously receiving complaints from the farmers for the last two days. The farmers were standing in the queue but they did not get fertilisers.

"Acting on the complaint, I went to check at the warehouse and the farmers claimed that the black marketing of the fertilisers was going on. But the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders and the officials did not like my stand for the farmers and a fake FIR was registered against me," Chawla alleged.

He added further, " I would like to tell them that they can lodge as many complaints as they can but I will keep fighting for the farmers."

Ratlam Collector Narendra Suryavanshi said, "It is an unfortunate incident. There is no shortage of urea in the district. There was a glitch in the server but still, the fertilisers were distributed to around 150 farmers in offline mode."

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