Suicide case: All you need to know about Pune hotelier Ajay Chordia, who had close links with Pawar

Pune-based 48-year old hotelier Ajay Chordia, chairman and managing director of Panchshil Hotels, was found dead in his hotel in Chinchwad on Monday afternoon. Stating that primary investigation was pointing to suicide, police said Chordia’s body was found hanging and that a note was found near the body.

“We found Ajay Chordia’s dead body in a hanging state in the gallery of Double Tree Hotel in Chinchwad at 2.45pm today. We also found a suicide note. We are verifying this note,” senior Police inspector B. Mudiraj of the Pimpri police station. The body has been sent to YCM Hospital in Pimpri.

Police have not come to any conclusion so far and investigations are on, Mudiraj said, adding that no case has been filed so far.

Here is all you need to know about Ajay Chordia

1. Chordia’s business has presence in Pimpri and Chinchwad regions. He was once a director of the Hotel and Restaurant Association of Western India.

2. Chordia’s Panchshil Hotels recently partnered with Hilton Hotels & Resorts to launch Double Tree.

3. The Chordia family is noted for its particularly close ties with the Nationalist Congress Party and its chief Sharad Pawar.

The Chordias were originally sugar traders from Pune and the deep Chordia-Pawar friendship dates back to Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s college days. Pawar was then a classmate of Panchshil Realty promoter Atul Chordia’s father, Ishwardas Chordia when they were students at Pune’s Brihan Maharashtra College of Commerce (BMCC).

Having entered Pune’s real estate market in the mid-1990s, the Chordias achieved dazzling growth and their Panchshil Realty Group is now ranked as one of Pune’s real estate giants with numerous prestigious projects in its name.In 2002, Panchshil Realty undertook construction of the International Convention Centre on Pune’s Senapati Bapat road. This project was initiated when Sharad Pawar’s brother Prataprao Pawar was president of the Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture (MCCIA).

4. The firm made news in 2011 after senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Eknath Khadse called attention to stock held in the firm by Pawar’s daughter Supriya Sule, and her husband, Sadanand. The records later showed that Supriya alone owned more than 9 percent shares. Tech Park One was built on the same area where 2G-accused builder Shahid Balwa’s DB Realty built a business centre on a common permission to build.

5.Chordia came into prominence after his attempt to acquire the iconic Express Towers building in South Mumbai a year ago.

With inputs from Agencies