MUMBAI, Sept. 14 -- The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL)'s decision to sell a 4.16-acre plot at Nariman Point to the Reserve Bank of India for Rs.3,472 crore is in the eye of a storm. The Congress has demanded that the deal be cancelled, alleging that the state went back on its promise to reinstate the political party offices that were on the plot before the land was taken over for the Metro 3 project. It also alleged that the deal has led to a loss of around Rs.1,800 crore for MMRCL, as the prime property was sold without floating tenders. The plot previously housed the offices of several parties, including the Congress, the undivided Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the undivided Shiv Sena, Samajwadi Party among others. In 2015, all the offices were shifted to Ballard Estate and the plot was vacated to facilitate the construction of the Vidhan Bhavan metro station. Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant said that Gandhi Bhavan, the Congress office, had existed on the plot for many decades along with the offices of the other parties. "The state, in a Government Resolution (GR), had directed the MMRDA and MMRCL to construct new office buildings on the same plot and hand them over to the political parties," he said. The GR was issued on October 21, 2015, a copy of which was shared by Sawant with HT. "The then chief minister Fadnavis had also written to the Congress, asking us to temporarily vacate the office for the metro project on December 02, 2016. Now, the government has reneged on that promise. Without any discussion with the Congress, the land was sold to the RBI and the deal was registered on September 5," said Sawant. Sawant said the market value of the plot was around Rs.5,200 crore, but the deal was struck at Rs.3,472 crore, resulting in a loss of Rs.1,800 crore to the exchequer. The Congress vice-president Adv Ganesh Patil, meanwhile, shared copies of the correspondence with the government. He also warned of approaching the court if the government failed to fulfil its promise. When contacted, MMRCL clarified that the land in question, known as the Vidhan Bhavan Barracks plot, had always been government land, and certain government offices and some political party offices were housed there on a purely temporary basis in barrack structures."MMRCL reiterates that the transaction is a transparent Government-approved process aimed at mobilising resources for Mumbai's critical Metro infrastructure," said the reply....