At the centre of Digvijaya, Jitu Patwari flashpoint, what is Veer Bharat Nyas

The Congress in Madhya Pradesh has accused the BJP-led government of handing over land worth Rs 500 crore in Ujjain to a trust, Veer Bharat Nyas, for Re 1, to allegedly benefit its trustee Shriram Tiwari, who is Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s cultural advisor.

Official records reviewed by The Indian Express show that Veer Bharat Nyas is a government trust under the state Culture Department, which began in 2013 with a working corpus of Rs 1,995 and no immovable property.

A review of state Cabinet minutes, Culture Department orders and the trust’s own public communications shows that Veer Bharat Nyas is headquartered at Ravindra Bhawan in Bhopal, with a second facility on Ujjain’s Kothi Mahal campus. The trust was constituted by the Madhya Pradesh Culture Department in February 2013, following the Cabinet’s approval in 2012, and functions as an autonomous body under that department with the CM as its ex-officio Chairman.

Shriram Tiwari, who also heads the state-run Maharaja Vikramaditya Research Peeth in Ujjain, has been associated with the trust since its constitution in 2012, when he was named an ex-officio trustee by virtue of then heading the Directorate of Swaraj Sansthan under the Culture Department, a post he still holds. He was given additional charge as the trust’s trustee secretary in March 2024.

Among its ongoing activities, the trust runs heritage-themed quiz competitions alongside cultural and research programmes tied to the Vikramaditya Peeth. It is this trust, and Tiwari’s dual role within it as the CM’s cultural advisor, that Madhya Pradesh Congress president Jitu Patwari raked up at a June 24 press conference in Delhi, where he alleged that government land in Ujjain worth around Rs 500 crore had been allotted to the trust for a token sum of Re 1.

Patwari’s senior Congress colleague and ex-CM Digvijaya Singh later seemed to contradict Patwari, claiming that his own documents “establish that the concerned land hasn’t been given to any private trust”. Singh’s “rebuttal” triggered a war of words within the state Congress, reigniting factionalism within the principal Opposition party.

Veer Bharat trust, museum

On July 5, 2011, the state General Administration Department issued an order, convening a ministerial committee to examine a proposed cultural project called ”Veer Bharat”. The committee met on February 6, 2012, with then BJP ministers Babulal Gaur, Laxmikant Sharma, Archana Chitnis, Umashankar Gupta and Ranjana Baghel in attendance, along with senior officials from the Housing and Environment and Culture departments.

As per minutes of that meeting, the principal secretary of the Housing and Environment Department briefed the committee on a study tour, telling members that “a team of officials had visited Akshardham and Virasat-e-Khalsa at Anandpur Sahib, Punjab, and inspected the work carried out there”. The committee was informed that “the first phase of the Virasat-e-Khalsa project had recently been completed by the Punjab government at a cost of Rs 400 crore over a period of 10 years, showcasing the heritage of the Khalsa Panth on a grand scale”. A multimedia presentation on the proposed Veer Bharat project was made by the same department.

Subsequently, the committee arrived at several conclusions that would shape the project. It recorded that “Veer Bharat Parisar is a large project with an estimated cost of around Rs 500 crore, for which a full-time establishment and dedicated leadership will be required”, and recommended that “a separate trust should be constituted under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, with the Culture Department functioning as its administrative department”. It noted that “funds for the trust will primarily have to be provided from the government budget.”

On land, the committee’s assessment was that the project “would require a minimum of 100 acres”, and that “in addition to the government land proposed by the Collector, Bhopal, suitable private land may also need to be acquired”. It stated a preference that “it would be appropriate for the land to be located within the limits of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation”, while leaving the final decision to the trust once formed.

On the character of the project itself, the committee stated that “Veer Bharat should not be developed merely as a museum”, recommending that “emphasis should be laid, as far as possible, on entertainment and interactive displays”, and that components suited to Public-Private Partnership be identified. The minutes concluded with a decision to place these recommendations before the Council of Ministers.

The Cabinet, led by then CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, approved the proposal on August 28, 2012. On February 14, 2013, the Department of Culture issued an order formally approving the creation of Veer Bharat Nyas as an autonomous trust under the department. According to that order, the trust was “conceived to plan, construct and operate a proposed cultural complex dedicated to showcasing Indian history, culture and the country’s glorious heritage.” The order authorised the Directorate of Swaraj Sansthan director to complete the modalities of registering the trust, using a trust deed vetted and revised by the state Law Department.

Government records show that for more than a decade after its constitution, the trust functioned without a dedicated trustee secretary. That changed on March 6, 2024 under the Mohan Yadav-led government, when the Culture Department issued an order giving Shriram Tiwari, then director of the Maharaja Vikramaditya Research Peeth, additional charge as the trustee secretary of Veer Bharat Nyas. The order specified that Tiwari would continue to hold his existing post while simultaneously discharging the new responsibility. It was issued in the name of the Madhya Pradesh Governor and signed by then Culture Department Secretary Urmila Shukla, and was circulated to the Chief Minister’s Office, Culture Minister’s office, Directorate of Culture, Chief Secretary’s Office, Maharaja Vikramaditya Research Peeth, and the District Treasury Office in Ujjain.

Land allotment to Nyas

The land allotment to the trust in Ujjain followed later that year. An order in this regard issued by the Ujjain Collector on September 11, 2024, cites a communication issued by the General Administration Department on February 23, 2024, which directed that the foundation stone of a proposed “Veer Bharat Parisar”, described in the communication as “a temple dedicated to India’s immortal personalities and illustrious heroes”, be laid in Ujjain. That communication directed that government land on which the Kothi Mahal building and campus stand in Ujjain be allotted to the Culture Department for establishing a museum there.

The Collector’s order records that Veer Bharat Nyas submitted an application seeking “allotment of Survey No. 63, measuring 1.486 hectares, for establishment of a museum under Veer Bharat Nyas”.

The same order references an earlier, separate proposal for the same site. It notes that the Tourism Department had at one point proposed converting Kothi Mahal into a heritage hotel, but that the Town and Country Planning Department had objected, citing the Ujjain Development Plan, 2021, under which “a hotel is not an acceptable/permissible category of land use on land earmarked for public and semi-public purposes”. The Collector’s order states that on this basis, “allotment of the land for a heritage hotel does not appear appropriate”.

Holding that there were “no objections” from any quarters to the Veer Bharat’s proposed project and citing approvals from the General Administration and Culture departments and the Divisional Commissioner, the Collector ordered that “the Kothi Mahal building and campus constructed on Survey No. 63… are hereby allotted/transferred to the Madhya Pradesh Culture Department for establishment of the Veer Bharat Museum”.

Congress stance

When asked for comment amid the Congress row following Digvijaya’s remarks on the issue, state Congress chief Jitu Patwari maintained his position, saying that “It doesn’t matter if this is a private or public trust. My concern is that why is it that BJP and RSS members are part of such trusts. There are also transparency issues, as the trust doesn’t reveal its functioning or other aspects in RTI applications”.

Sriram Tiwari declined to make any comments on the row. However, a senior Veer Bharat Nyas official pointed out that the trust was funded by the government. “Shriram Tiwari has headed the trust and in his capacity had helped publish over 70 books when he was associated with it in 2012. The trust is run under the Culture Department and has organised Mahabharat plays and other cultural programmes attended by the CM himself,” he said.