Zeno

The two charges raised against Gadkari by the India Against Corruption movement were that his businesses were being financed by shell companies and that he had made quid pro quo dealings with the road infrastructure company IRB. These transactions were masked as loans and investments into the Purti group but were allegedly paybacks for all the road contracts awarded to the company during Gadkari’s stint in charge of Maharashtra’s public-works department. Even fellow leaders in the BJP could not ignore this, particularly when heading into a national election that they intended to fight on an anti-corruption plank. The senior lawyer and BJP member Ram Jethmalani publicly demanded Gadkari’s resignation as the party’s national president. Others, such as Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha, joined the chorus. But the party and its ideological parent, the RSS, stood by Gadkari’s side. It also deployed S Gurumurthy, an RSS member and chartered accountant, to fish out a clean chit, one that ended up raising more questions than providing answers. The affair was politically costly for Gadkari, forcing him to step back from a second term as the BJP’s national president—for which the party’s constitution had been specifically amended—but it left his businesses largely untouched. He even went on the offensive, threatening income tax officials and telling the press, “When BJP comes to power at the centre, we will not spare any of them.” Now, thirteen years later, any cases against his business empire have faded out of the limelight. He holds an exalted position even within Narendra Modi’s highly centralised cabinet. Read the entire report by Kaushal Shroff on the beef company enmeshed in Gadkari’s business empire: caravanmagazine.in/business/… Infographic by Sukruti Anah Staneley (@SSukruti)