BJP leaders accuse Akali minister of Rs100 cr fraud

Trouble between the Akalis and their coalition partner BJP seems to be unending with a senior BJP leader today alleged a Rs100 crore advertisement fraud in Ludhiana involving influential Akali Minister. Parveen Bansal, Ludhiana district president of the BJP, along with five party councillors told the media today that an advertising company, Greenline Advertisers, had misappropriated the tax payers money by using MC land beyond their allotted period of 2009-13 and later getting a report in their favour that the company was not given due space for advertising in the said period. Bansal alleged the total loss was over Rs100 crore. Bansal and the councilors — Inder Aggarwal, Sarbjit Singh Kaka, Narinder Singh Malhi, Devinder Jaggi, Sumit Malhotra and BJP district vice-president Jatinder Mittal said the company used three times more space than what was allotted to it. They alleged the company tampered with the space figures by showing bigger dimension of bus shelters and unipoles besides other places earmarked for advertisements.