Former MLA Sureshkumar Bhikamchand Jain alias Suresh Jain, who hails from Jalgaon region of Maharashtra, is seen as a very strong and honest leader in the state politics. Due to this image, he has represented Jalna Assembly seat a record seven consecutive times from 1980 to 2014. He first reached the Assembly on a Congress ticket during the time of former Prime Minister of the country Indira Gandhi. After which he has done politics under the flags of almost all the big parties of the state except Bharatiya Janata Party. Suresh Jain was last successful in winning the election as a Shiv Sena candidate.
Sureshkumar Bhikamchand Jain, popularly known as Suresh Jain. He changed his party affiliation several times in his political career and was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly a record seven times. Currently he is a convicted criminal in the Jalgaon housing scam. Jain was a minister in the Maharashtra government and the main conspirator in the Jalgaon Gharkul scam. The court sentenced him to 7 years of imprisonment if he was found guilty. Jalgaon Municipal Corporation had suffered a loss of Rs 150 crore due to this scam. Which is considered one of the biggest corruption scams of Maharashtra.
MLA Suresh Jain was elected from Jalgaon constituency in 1980 as an Indian National Congress (Indira) candidate, in 1985 as an Indian Congress (Socialist) candidate, in 1990 as an Indian Congress (Socialist) – Sharat Chandra Sinha candidate, In 1995 as an Indian National Congress candidate, in 1999 as a Shiv Sena candidate, in 2004 as a Nationalist Congress Party candidate and in 2009 as a Shiv Sena candidate, he was elected from Jalgaon City constituency. Jain was in the Shiv Sena party in the 1990s and served as a minister of state. He was a prominent leader of Shiv Sena in North Maharashtra.
What is Jalgaon housing scam?
The sessions court in the state’s Dhule district had sentenced former state ministers Suresh Jain and Gulabrao Deokar to seven years and five years in jail, respectively, after they convicted them in the multi-crore ‘Gharkul’ housing scam. In this case, 46 other accused were sentenced to three to seven years of imprisonment. Special Judge Srishti Neelkanth sentenced Shiv Sena leader Suresh Jain to seven years’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 100 crore on him in the Rs 29 crore housing project scam. This scam took place in the 1990s when he was the Minister of State for Home.
Apart from Jain and Devkar, the accused in this scam include some former councilors and officials of the Municipal Corporation. All the 48 accused present in the court were taken into custody immediately after the court announced its verdict. Jain was arrested in March 2012. He spent more than a year in jail before getting bail from the Supreme Court.
