Go Figure It Out!

• The FIU of the Union FinMin red-flags these transactions, which took place some 20 days before Modi became PM

• Donations were made to the BJP on the day Blackstone of Singapore put in FDI of Rs 240 crore in three Chordia firms

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At Sharad Pawar’s 75th birth­day celebrations last fortnight, with almost the entire political pantheon lined up in attendance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a rich compliment to the Maratha strongman, who had broken away from the Congress and launched the Nationalist Con­­g­ress Party (NCP) over Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. Pawar, said Modi, was like the proverbial farmer who can sense the weather and knows which way the wind will blow. Given Pawar’s long stint as agriculture minister, the analogy seems apt. But perhaps it was also loaded.

For it isn’t just Pawar, even corporate groups associated with his family members seem to have picked up his acumen. In early 2014, ahead of the general elections, a couple of them sensed the way the political wind was blowing and were quick to play their cards. On May 7, 2014, just a week before the poll results were announced, at least two real estate companies in which Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, an MP, and her husband Sadanand Sule are shareholders, donated Rs 3 crore to the BJP’s official account.

While the amount in itself is insignificant, these and related transactions have been red-flagged by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Union finance ministry. An FIU note with Outlook says: “Comp­lex large-value transactions on a single day within a group of accounts...being utilised as intermediaries to receive funds from overseas firms without any economic rationale, coupled with payment of Rs 3 crore to political party account (of)the BJP, not in tune with the profile declared by the customer, has given rise to suspicion.”

And there are two ironies. It isn’t as if the FIU sprang into action when the previous UPA government was in power: the report raising questions was generated in February 2015, when the Modi-led BJP government was already eight months into power. The second irony is that wings of the North Block, including the Enforcement Dir­ectorate (ED) and the income-tax department (I-T) are pursuing investigations to take the matter to its logical conclusion.

The “complex large-value transactions” pertain to three Pune-based real estate companies: Panchshil Tech Park (PTP) Pvt Ltd, M/s Balewadi Prop­erties, and Premsagar Infra Realty Pvt Ltd. The promoters of these companies are the Chordia family, and Pawar’s daughter and son-in-law have a stake in two of them.

So who are the Chordias? Sagar and Atul Chordia, promoters in the three firms, are Pune-based real estate magnates. Their father Ishwardas reportedly went to college with Sharad Pawar. A Forbes 2013 list had said Sagar and Atul were the 100th richest Indians, with a combined worth of $625 million (about Rs 4,125 crore, by the present exchange rate). They’d dropped out of the 2014 list. But, says the note, acc­ording to the profile Sagar has filed with the I-T department, his gross annual income is just Rs 15 lakh and that of his wife Varsha Rs 3 lakh. Atul now says that in the financial year 2014, Sagar declared a salaried income of Rs 6 crore. All donations they have made, he says, are lawful and have been declared to the authorities.

The maze of transactions of May 7 that the FIU red-flagged as suspicious are:

• A cheque payment of Rs 1 crore by PTP Pvt Ltd to the BJP;

• Preceding this, Balewadi Properties, a consortium led by the Chordias, paid Rs 1 crore to PTP Pvt Ltd;

• The same day, Balewadi Properties donates Rs 1 crore to the BJP;

• Preceding this, Sagar’s personal Stand­ard Chartered Bank account is credited with Rs 2.06 crore;

• Sagar then transfers Rs 1 crore to PTP Pvt Ltd;

• The note also says, separately, that “on March 13, 2014, it is obs­­er­ved that a cheque favo­uring the BJP for Rs 1 crore has been paid”.

What makes all this even more intriguing is that on May 7, the Chordias also received over Rs 240 crore from Blackstone Real Estate Part­ners, a real estate private equity firm based in Singapore. These monies were paid into the Chordias’ firms like PTP, Premsagar Infra Realty and Zero G Apartments. And from these companies, half the sum was transferred to Sagar’s Standard Chartered Bank account.

Speaking for his group, Atul says the Blackstone money was foreign direct investment (FDI) “in compliance with foreign exchange laws” and that “all documents and necessary filings have been done under applicable laws with the appropriate regulators”. However, funds received as FDI for a particular purpose (say real estate in this case) cannot be transferred to a personal account. “If that is done, it would not be called a bonafide transaction,” says a tax expert.

The Chordias were in the news in July last year, when they were probed along with 2G scam accused Vinod Goenka and Shahid Balwa of realty firm DB Realty. The Chordias and DB Real Estate are partners in many Pune projects. The Pune police had lodged an FIR against them, based on a complaint by RTI activist Ravi Bharate, following allegations that they grabbed 326 acres in Yerawada. And bef­ore the FIR was lodged, Eknath Kadse, then leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra assembly and now a member of the Devendra Fadnavis government, had demanded a CBI probe into the deal.

Supriya Sule distances herself from it all. She says, “I’m a small shareholder and not even on the board (of PTP or Balewadi). And it’s not illegal to donate to a political party. I’m a shareholder in other companies as well, and I wouldn’t know who these companies donate to. As for a suspicious transaction report, it’s for the government to answer.” There had been reports that Supriya and her husband Sadanand had surrendered their shares in real estate firms they were associated with after some negative publicity in the lead-up to the October 2014 Maharashtra assembly elections. But PTP Pvt Ltd’s shareholding pattern from 2012 to 2014 shows Supriya owning 3,19,497 shares. During the same period, Sadanand held 2.5 lakh shares in Premsagar Infra Realty Pvt Ltd. He admits they continue to hold these shares, acquired over 2005-07.

As for the BJP, it’s blase about being taken note of for “suspicious transactions”. Coal and power minister Piyush Goyal, who was the BJP’s treasurer when these transactions happened, says, “The BJP receives funds from so many quarters and companies. If the donation is certified and permitted by the law, then the party will accept it.” As for the sudden bonhomie with the NCP, which was part of the Congress-led UPA ally at the time of these transactions, Goyal says, “Well, everyone loves Mr Modi.”

When it comes to political funding, Modi certainly tops the charts.

By Meetu Jain in Delhi