The Vaghela regime had agreed to release 14,267 square metres of prime land worth over Rs.20 crorebelonging to the government's Vaccine Institute on the posh Old Padra Road. The land had been acquired fromfarmers a couple of decades ago under the Urban Land Ceiling Act for the Vaccine Institute. The governmentagreed to sell the land back to the farmers, whose power of attorney was held by a close associate of MadhuSrivastav.
But the government could not implement this decision because of a public interest litigation filed in theGujarat High Court by senior BJP leader Nalin Bhatt, then the chairman of the Gujarat Electricity Board. Whilethis litigation was pending, the Congress pulled down the Vaghela government and later fresh elections wereordered in 1998. Just before the elections, the same Srivastav was admitted into the BJP and given a ticketfrom Waghodia, and this was done basically to use his influence for the party's Lok Sabha candidate.
The same BJP, which had filed a public interest litigation against release of the land tacitly in favour ofSrivastav, withdrew the petition. A deal seemed to have been struck. The BJP Government was to release thatland after it came to power in 1998. In brief, the process to release a piece of land for Srivastav wasstarted by Vaghela in return for the fall of a BJP Government, and furthered again by a BJP Government led byKeshubhai Patel.
A decision challenged by the BJP in the highest court of the State was ratified by its own government. (It isanother matter that the land has still not been passed on, thanks to the hue and cry raised by former ministerJaspal Singh, also from Vadodara, that time.) It speaks for the man's clout, which, it is obvious, goes muchbeyond winning one Lok Sabha seat and one Assembly seat for the BJP in Vadodara.
The Best Bakery is an important off-shoot of the BJP keeping Srivastav in good humour, or perhaps the otherway around. Inside accounts say that with the land deal not having come through so far, nor his nameconsidered for ministership
or even a board or corporationchairmanship,
his endeavours on behalf of the accused - and the witnesses - in the Best Bakerycase are targeted to curry favour with the Chief Minister.