2G scam, DB Realty: Corruption, controversies haunt Sharad Pawar
One of India's richest politicians finds it hard to defend his empire as allegations about dubious deals swirl around him.
Nana Chudasama's personalised banner on Marine Drive has been an institution for over half a century. Its headlines may vary in quality but are extremely topical. Last week, the banner read: Lok Pal Bill is fresh air in India's dirty politics. Sharad Pawar, Union agriculture minister, was passing through the area when a confidant drew his attention to the banner. Pawar wasn't amused.
For many, Pawar has become the metaphor for the cosy relationship between power and money. In recent times, no politician has drawn the kind of flak Pawar has. Almost every week, the mighty Maratha has courted controversy for alleged investments made by him or his family in a host of projects. Anna Hazare, a fellow Maharashtrian, named him as the symbol of corrupt politics. The mighty Maratha is involved in innumerable controversies for investments made by him or his family in a host of grand projects. The latest revelations are:
- Ajit Pawar, Sharad Pawar's nephew, who was the state's irrigation minister in 2007, was named in a scam after documents revealed he had awarded AG Mercantile, a company partly owned by him, a contract to repair a dam in Raigad. But instead of money for the repairs, the company was given 93,646 square feet land on lease for 99 years. The land, located at the old Mumbai-Pune highway, overlooks a beautiful water reservoir. In 2008, the company got an additional 97,000 sq ft of land for building a road and a bridge. Ajit, who had earlier denied his involvement in AG Mercantile, had no answer when confronted with documents revealing that he held 8,800 equity shares. Vinod Goenka, Pawar's family friend and co-owner of of the 2G tainted DB Realty, is one of the directors of the company. Ajit said he sold his shares in November 2005 so he did not mention it in his election affidavit. However, records show he continued to have stakes in the company after 2005.
- On July 14, 2007, Pawar, Ajit, chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and some bureaucrats attended a meeting at a guest house in Lavasa to bend the rules for Lavasa Corporation, a company where Pawar's daughter Supriya and her husband Sadanand Sule held shares (which were eventually sold). Among the favours granted to the developer was the status of a town planner, normally reserved for municipal corporations.
- Documents show how Pawar, when he was chief minister in the 80s, helped a company owned by a friend expand a plot of 3.27 acres into 326 acres of land (see details and Pawar's viewpoint in box.)
- Pune Municipal Commissioner, Mahesh Zagde, blamed Pawar for shunting him out of the city after he issued a demolition order on DB Realty head Vinod Goenka for violating norms in his five star hotel project in Yerwada. The project was being built on land owned by Mukund Bhavan Trust. Sule has a stake in the project. "The politicians (read Pawar) shunted me out and forced me to go for training. I could have done this training this October," Zagde told INDIA TODAY in a telephone interview from the IAS academy in Mussoorie. His duties, normally handed over to the additional municipal commissioner, was given to Pune's divisional commissioner, Dilip Band.
One of the UPA regime's indispensable pillars has the dubious distinction of turning whatever he touches into a controversy, if not a scam. "A person of Pawar's stature cannot afford to have a scandal every week discussed in the state assembly. He and members of his family must come clean. Otherwise the charges will stick," Maharashtra Leader of the Opposition, Eknath Khadse of the BJP, told INDIA TODAY.
Ravindra Barhate, an RTI activist who has accessed a lot of documents that helped Khadse target Pawar and his family members, agrees: "Pawar initially said he had nothing to do with Lavasa and here he is attending a meeting (as an agriculture minister) and offering facilities to the builders."
Pawar's MP daughter Supriya Sule is facing questions about her links with DB Realty. Supriya and her husband jointly own 9 per cent of Panchshil Tech Park One (PTPO), which is a joint patron with DB Realty of the Mukund Bhavan Trust (MBT) at Yerwada in Pune.
The PTPO, owned by Pawar's "family friend" Atul Chordia, is situated near an upcoming five star hotel being constructed by DB Realty in survey number 191-A at Yerwada. What surprises Pawar's opponents is a letter written by Balwa to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests in June 2007 seeking environmental clearance for his hotel and IT park. He got the clearance in just one day, courtesy his friend, then Union environment minister, A. Raja. Khadse argues that Balwa's letter establishes his business links with PTPO, where Sule is a shareholder. "If Balwa had no links with PTPO, why would he send a letter on his letterhead on behalf of PTPO," he asks. NCP MLA and a confidant of the Pawars, Jitendra Avhad, rubbishes the argument. "The land for PTPO was bought in 2004 and its work was completed in 2006. Balwa bought the land for a five star hotel in 2007. So where does the question of his seeking environment clearance for PTPO arise? The word Panchshil is not mentioned in Balwa's application letter. He too is building an IT Park in the area," Avhad says. However, he has no answer on when Balwa sought environment clearance for the IT Park. INDIA TODAY did not find any evidence of the construction of IT Park when it visited the spot.
Sule's business links with DB Realty are evident in the documents acquired by Barhate from Pune under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Panchshil Tech Park filed Articles of Association on June 22, 2005 pertaining to PTPO with the Registrar of Companies. In this document, Panchshil Tech Park has said that they own 92,588 sq ft built-up space in survey number 191-A at Yerwada. Actually, they owned only 52,000 sq ft of built-up space on that day; the rest-40,000 sq ft-was owned by DB Realty. "If Panchshil shows the space owned by DB Realty as their own it establishes that they have business links," says Barhate. He says that the land where PTPO and DB Realty's upcoming hotel is situated originally belonged to the defence forces. "Records show that the land was in possession of the defence forces since 1931. It is a matter of investigation how the defence land was transferred to MBT and then the trust sold it to DB Realty and Panchshil." Barhate gives an example of one Persi Billimoria to corroborate his claim. "Billimoria had claimed that his forefathers had purchased the land in survey number. 191-B in 1937. The revenue department had handed over the land to Billimoria. However, the tehsildar nullified this deal four months later. He ruled that the land belonged to the defence forces. "It shows that the survey number 191 belongs to the defence forces. Will the Government take the land back from MBT as it did in the Billimoria case," asks Barhate.
PTPO is not the only example of Sule's proximity to DB Realty. DB Realty is constructing a 10-storey school at Chandivali in Mumbai for Pawar Public School, a trust headed by her. Interestingly, DB Realty is constructing a residential colony for slumdwellers a few metres from the school. If a minister from Mumbai is to be believed, DB Realty has not charged for constructing the school. In turn, Pawar's NCP is helping DB Realty to get involved in the redevelopment of a colony spread over 42,000 sq metres in the upmarket Worli area of Mumbai. The Worli plot is a hot potato because of its huge market value. DB Realty challenged Maharashtra's decision to give rights of redevelopment of Mumbai's second biggest slum after Dharavi in Worli to its arch rival, Lokhandwala Builders, in the Bombay High Court on August 24, 2010.
Though Pawar maintains he is just an acquaintance of Balwa and Goenka, documents available withINDIA TODAYshow that in 2004 a company fully owned by Pawar, his wife and Supriya Sule gave at least Rs 25 lakh to the Dynamix Hotel Group. Though money was paid as advance for purchase of land by Pawar familyowned Lap Finance and Investment Company, there is no evidence in official files to show that Dynamix bought them the land. The filings of Dynamix Hotels also do not show what happened to the money. Dynamix Hotels was later renamed as YJ Realty Private Limited, the mainstay of the Balwa-Goenka empire.
Land is close to Pawar's heart. It is the source of his political agony today. Immediately after resigning from the GoM on corruption, the NCP supremo asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to drop him from all the 26 GoMs. The prime minister was not ready to let him go. As controversies swirled around him, Pawar called a select group of journalists to his home and made a impassioned plea: "Attack me, but spare Supriya." The following week, television channels started flashing Ajit's AG Mercantile links, causing immense discomfort to the deputy chief minister. Friends, some from the corporate world, advised Pawar to sign up a public relations agency. A subsidiary of his ministry even zeroed in on Mutual PR. "He was very upset, it seemed nothing will work in his favour. But he knows how to handle these tensions," Chandra Iyengar, one of his favourite bureaucrats in Maharashtra, told INDIA TODAY.
For a period stretching over a decade and half, Pawar has found himself mired in controversy. His Vidya Pratishthan in Baramati came under a cloud for accepting donations from people linked with the underworld and his Baramati Sahkari Doodh Sangh, a milk federation, drew flak for not paying the farmers their legitimate due.
The minister and his family have been dragged to court for taking undue advantage in acquiring land in and around Pune. Pawar has been accused of creating artificial shortages in the domestic wheat market in a scandal that rocked India in 2007 and was accused of importing and exporting sugar simultaneously, allegedly to help traders last year. The Pawar family had a stake in City Corporation that made the controversial IPL bid for the Pune Warriors. All these controversies have, over the years, taken their toll on one of India's toughest politicians.
At 71, Pawar who in a political career spanning more than four decades has handled a number of crucial portfolios at the Centre, badly needs a makeover. Says Maharashtra PWDminister Chhagan Bhujbal: "For a man who has pursued a second career as a dealmaker, he still has grander ambitions. Now, he must clear himself." But Pawar still rhymes with power. "Wonder how he'll recover that pristine reputation he had many years ago, a person who could trigger an agriculture revolution, a person who could have become the prime minister. Whether he's indicted is secondary to the fact that many have lost respect for him," says Gopinath Munde, BJP's deputy leader in Lok Sabha. Munde had once offered evidence to the Lok Sabha that Pawar had ferried in his official aircraft the Sharma brothers (Anil Amar Singh Sharma and Anil Nirbhay Singh Sharma), allegedly sharpshooters for Dawood Ibrahim, who were involved in the sensational JJ Hospital shootout. But a clever Pawar won the day by saying that when the brothers travelled with him, not a single case was registered against them.
That is Pawar. Even as he floats in controversy, his political worth remains intact. "I am used to controversies. I have completed 43 years in Parliamentary and legislative politics. A person who survives for many years is bound to get attacked from this or that section. This does not affect me because only I know what is true," he told INDIA TODAY. (see interview) Today, he is forced to defend his reputation. When the Pawar story began decades ago, he was a star: a fine administrator and a secular hero. He was the one who renamed Marathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar despite knowing that there would be a political price to pay; he revived the stock markets within two days of the 1993 serial blasts; and he changed the face of agriculture by tying the state employment guarantee scheme to horticulture.
At a time when the UPA is on the defensive on corruption, Pawar has reason to be worried. While it suits the Congress president to keep Pawar off balance, she has no wish to topple him altogether. The party would prefer to keep its alliance with the NCP, even while putting pressure on Pawar by leaking information on his alleged links, questioning his performance as agriculture minister and by appointing a critic-Prithviraj Chavan-as Maharashtra chief minister.
Congress insiders say the recent pressures on Pawar are deliberate. The manner in which the CBI leaked Niira Radia's conversation with a journalist, in which she maintained that he owned DB, indicated the powers that be wanted this angle highlighted. This was the latest in a series of revelations that have tarnished Pawar's image- right from the wheat import scam of UPA I to Balwa. People close to Pawar say that his direct association with business increased after his daughter Supriya married Sadanand Sule, son of Bhalchandra Sule, managing director of automobile firm Mahindra and Mahindra. Sadanand, a director in Vijay Mallya-owned United Beverages, had stakes in Lavasa.
In the last few years, however, Pawar has been increasingly aware of the money big businesses have been raking in. He has constantly pushed for opening up of the market and allowing exports of commodities. Pawar has been linked with MCX, a commodity exchange run by Mumbai-based entrepreneur Jignesh Shah. Pawar also presides over the agricultural ministry at a time when genetically modified (GM) crops like cotton are increasingly grown in India, which is among the world's five biggest markets for nonfood agricultural crops. In short, he is laying the foundation to have a say in what will be the country's biggest preoccupation in the coming years- food. And land.
An anecdote discussed in Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of Maharashtra, describes Pawar's lust for land. When he was chief minister in 1993, Pawar was invited by an eminent Marathi producer to watch his latest. Pawar asked the producer to rewind a specific song thrice. The producer and others thought the chief minister liked the song. After the third rewind, Pawar asked the producer where the song was filmed. "Mumbai," the producer said. Pawar replied: "I can see a lot of open space. How come I don't know about such vacant land in Mumbai?"
Pawar should have known. His detractors say the veteran politician can identify a plot's potential better than identifying a party worker's political potential. He personally selected the site for the controversial hill station Lavasa and a host of DB Realty's housing projects, including the Aldeia-De-Goa at Bambolim in Goa, little realising life's biggest passion will become his life's biggest curse.
- With T. Surendar in Mumbai and Shafi Rahman in New Delhi.