Jobs For Our Boys

Given Essar’s many infrastructure projects, it’s not surprising that the conglomerate has been inundated by requests from influential politicians to “accommodate” their candidates—in other words, give them jobs. This was a constant, unrelenting pressure. In a mail on July 26, 2013, Sunil Bajaj from Essar Services sends CVs of important “referrals” to Ashish Rajgharia, EA to the chairman, Essar Steel India Ltd (ESIL). Rajgarhia forwards the mail to various HR heads, and then a month later, on getting no response writes: “Once again would like to reiterate that all these requisitions are from VVIPs and cannot be ignored....” 

The UPA’s then coal minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal was particularly insistent on getting his candidates—at least four of them—jobs. In another exchange, Bajaj writes to Rajgarhia: “During our recent meeting with coal minister Sh. Sri Prakash Jaiswal he had requested for recruitment of few people from his constituency. He had given the CV of Mr Chetan Dixit a month ago & shown his annoyance that even a small work is not being done by you and said you could tell me clearly if you are able to do it. Minister has given me 5 CVs, out of 5 he has suggested to recruit following 3 people immediately.” 

Of course, there were many other req­u­ests. Sanjeev Kumar, private secretary to the then petroleum minister Veerappa Moily, got his nephew recruited in Essar Power. According to the e-mails, there are similar referrals from senior Congress leaders Motilal Vora, Digvijay Singh, Beni Prasad Verma, and the BJP’s Varun Gandhi. In fact, the pressure for these referral jobs was so heavy that the Essar group thought of forming a pool for such candidates.