New Delhi:
Amit Jogi, son of former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, was arrested from his Bilaspur home on Tuesday. Amit Jogi has been arrested for allegedly giving false information in affidavits. Jogi has been under the radar after the BJP filed a complaint against him in 2013. Jogi has studied at DU’s prestigious St Stephen's College and Jawaharlal Nehru University. In 2013, Jogi was elected as member of legislative Assembly representing Marwahi in Chhattisgarh. In 2016, he formed the Janta Congress Chhattisgarh with father Ajit Jogi after the duo was expelled from the Indian National Congress for anti-party activities.
The Tuesday’s arrest followed a complaint by a BJP leader, Sameera Paikra, who contested against him in 2013 from the Marwahi Assembly seat in Chhattisgarh, which is a reserved constituency. According to the plea filed in the High Court, Amit Jogi was born at three places on three different dates. According to the age certificates submitted by Paikra, Jogi was born at Dallas (Texas) on 7 August 1977, in Indore on May 7, 1977 and at Sarbahra village in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh on August 7, 1978.
The party has described the arrest as political vendetta. Meanwhile, an FIR has been registered against former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi in Bilaspur district, days after a government-appointed committee rejected his claim of being a tribal, police said. A high-level caste scrutiny committee set up by the state government had last week dismissed Ajit Jogi’s claim of belonging to a Scheduled Tribe (ST) and cancelled his caste certificates.
Subsequently, Ajit Jogi, who served as the first chief minister of Chhattisgarh, has been booked for allegedly fraudulently obtaining caste certificates, the police said.
The 73-year-old politician’s claim of being a tribal has been rejected multiple times in the past too. The case against Ajit Jogi was filed on Thursday night under section 10 (1) of the Chhattisgarh Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes (Regulation of Certification of Social Status) Rules, 2013, at the civil lines police station on the direction of the district administration, Bilaspur SP Prashant Agrawal said.
In 2011, the Supreme Court had ordered the then BJP government in the state to form a high-powered committee to scrutinise Jogi’s caste certificates.
(With agency inputs)
