The Gurugram Police on Saturday booked Congress President Rahul Gandhi’s brother-in-law Robert Vadra and former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for alleged fraudulent land transactions in 2008. Real estate developer DLF and Omkareshwar Properties have also been named in the First Information Report, Manesar Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajesh Kumar told PTI.

The case has been lodged in connection with alleged irregularities in a land deal in Sector 83 of Gurugram. It was filed under sections of the Indian Penal Code including 420 (cheating), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), and Section 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, The New Indian Express said.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said the complaint would be investigated. “Our fight against corruption is on,” ANI quoted him as saying. “Those found guilty will be punished, and a probe is underway by different agencies in different cases.”

Calling it a “political vendetta”, Hooda said the FIR is an attempt to divert people’s attention from important issues. “They want to indulge in such things because the government is a total failure,” he told Times Now. “Nothing wrong has been done, no one has been favoured during my tenure.”

In 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state had set up a commission led by Justice SN Dhingra to investigate licences given to develop real estate in four villages – Sihi, Shikohpur, Kherki Daula, and Sikanderpur Bada – in Gurugram. The report had accused Hooda of giving a few private companies undue advantages in procuring licences to develop four sectors in Gurugram during his tenure as chief minister. This includes Skylight Hospitality owned by Vadra.

According to the FIR, Vadra’s firm Skylight Hospitality was set up in 2007 with a capital of Rs 1 lakh, and a year later, in February 2008, it bought 3.53 acres of land in Sector 83, Gurugram, for Rs 7.5 crore from Onkareshwar Properties. The cheque, however, was never encashed, the FIR lodged by a Surinder Sharma said. The land was then sold back to DLF for Rs 58 crore after it was re-classified, The Times of India reported.

Vadra has denied the allegations. “It’s election season... there is an increase in oil prices... so let’s divert the real issues of people... what’s new?” reports quoted him as saying. The BJP had brought up the land deals while campaigning for the Haryana elections in 2014.