BJP: Is There Something Rotten at the Top?

A sensational disclosure by online news portal The Wire on Sunday about the business run by Jay Shah son of BJP president Amit Shah has roiled the country and turned the heat on the BJP. According to the story, Jay Shah owns a company called Temple Enterprise Private Ltd. Based on balance sheets and annual reports filings at the Registrar of Companies, The Wire claimed:

“(I)n the financial years ending March 2013 and 2014, Shah’s Temple Enterprise Private Ltd. engaged in negligible activity and recorded losses of Rs 6,230 and Rs 1,724 respectively. In 2014-15, it showed a profit of Rs 18,728 on revenues of only Rs 50,000 before jumping to a turnover of Rs 80.5 crore in 2015-16.”

The report also stated that in 2015-16, Temple Enterprises “got access to an unsecured loan of Rs 15.78 crore from financial services firm KIFS”. This lending company is owned by none other than one Rajesh Khandwala, the samdhi (in-law) of Parimal Nathwani, a Rajya Sabha MP and top executive of Reliance Industries.

Further, the portal revealed that in October 2016, Temple Enterprises stopped functioning claiming that its net worth had fully eroded after it had posted a loss of Rs.1.4 crore that year, in addition to accumulated losses.

Meanwhile, another Jay Shah company Kusum Finserve also got help from KIFS, and is now diversifying into renewable energy by setting up a windmill farm in Ratlam, MP, according to The story.

According to report, Shah’s filings “also reflect Rs 25 crore worth of finance from the Kalupur Commercial Cooperative Bank”.

In his response, Jay Shah’s lawyer has denied any wrong doing and threatened to sue the author of the report and editors and owners of the website on charges of criminal defamation. A suit claiming Rs.100 crore damages is being filed, according to a notice sent by the lawyer to the news portal.

What does all this mean? Amit Shah’s son owned a company that suddenly hit a golden streak, and then went bust. This could be a very sad but normal story of any Indian entrepreneur.

Except that Jay Shah is the son of a very, very powerful man who many consider as the right hand confidante of PM Modi.

That’s why there is speculation across the country on many questions: was any undue influence used in the financial dealings of Temple Enterprises? Was money being channelized or laundered through the company? How did a share broker firm get into windmill farms? Was then renewable energy minister Piyush Goyal involved in giving permission for this? And so on…

Various political parties have strongly come out demanding independent probe into this complex web. While it is not yet possible to say who all are guilty and who not, scams and allegations seem to be piling up fast against the ruling BJP which was elected on a mandate for cleaning up the corrupt mess left by the previous Congress government.

The CPI(M) has stated that “The hypocrisy of the Prime Minister and the BJP government lies in the fact that while they are pursuing corruption cases against leaders of the opposition, this government in these three years has not even implemented the law enacted by the Parliament to establish the Lokpal.

“There is no step being taken by this government to investigate scams like Vyapam; Srijan housing scam in Bihar; the Birla-Sahara diaries; the Panama papers; the Lalit Modi case; the mining scandal in Karnataka that led to the resignation of BJP Chief Minister in the state; land grab case by BJP leaders in Maharashtra and Uttarakhand; PDS scam in Chattisgarh; the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) scam etc. etc.” the CPI(M) said.