Gadkari's super luxury cruise in the South of France: All you need to know about his Essar link

First it was his murky links with the Purti Groups. Then it was the bugging row incident at his residence followed by allegations that he has commercial interests in e-rickshaws. And now BJP leader Nitin Gadkari has landed himself in yet another controversy. A series of internal communications within the Essar Group, published by the Indian Express, revealed how the Shashi Ruia-led Essar Group gave the BJP leader and his family access to a super luxury company yacht in July 2013. A helicopter was also arranged for the family in order to transport them to the vessel. The leaked emails indicate that the stay was arranged at Gadkari’s ‘request’ - “Mr Nitin Gadkari (former President of BJP – the opposition) is in Europe and would like to spend 2-3 days aboard Sunrays…” An email sent from the Essar corporate office to the captain of the Sunrays yacht says, “Guests are very important people as discussed. Kindly see they are comfortable". Gadkari, who is the current Union Road and Transport Minister, has confirmed that he took a chopper ride from the French city of Nice to Riviera waterfront for the yacht cruise during a trip he had made in 2013 when he said he was not a minister, MP or MLA and he had paid from the entire trip from his “family account”. He has also indignantly protested he knew the Ruia family as neighbours and his yacht jaunt was nothing more than a neighbourly gesture. “I was not holding any public office…I was not an MP or MLA,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_2126109” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Nitin Gadkari. PTI[/caption] Gadkar said it was during his trip to Norway when the visit to the luxury yacht ‘Sunrays’ materialised. “I bought tickets from Frankfurt from our own money. Boarding, lodging, everything for the private family visit was taken care of from the family account.I have never taken money from any corporate (entity). I have done nothing wrong. I am always eager to see new things. I could have even paid for a ticket had the Ruias issued tickets for boarding the yacht but then it was their private property,” he said . When asked if he and his family members did take a ride on the corporate group’s helicopter from Nice to the yacht, the Union Minister said, “There was no other option. The chopper belonged to the Ruias and there was no road on the sea that could have taken me there (the yacht).” Sunrays is no ordinary yacht. Manned by a 20-plus crew, the 280-ft yacht can easily host upwards of 16 guests. It consists of suites, a lobby, dining room, multiples bars, jacuzzis, a helipad etc and the normal rate for hiring such a yacht is upwards of $1,00,000 (Rs 60 lakh) for a week, an Outlook report has pointed out. “The Gadkari vacation in the South of France begins with an e-mail on June 30, 2013, sent by Ashish Rajgarhia, executive assistant to the chairman, Essar Steel India Ltd (ESIL), to Magnus Sundin, captain of the yacht Sunrays, with these words: “Mr Nitin Gadkari (former president of the BJP—the opposition) is in Europe and would like to spend 2-3 days onboard Sunrays. Mr. RNR/PSR has agreed to it.” That’s Ravikant Ruia and his nephew Prashant Ruia, group chief executive of Essar,” the Outlook report, which has also accessed the emails between top Essar employees said. This ‘favour’ from the Ruia brothers was extended to Gadkari just a few months after he was not re-elected as BJP president due to another controversy that broke out in January 2013 regarding his alleged stakes in shell companies. The Income Tax department had in 2013 launched on-field inquiries at around nine locations in Mumbai belonging to alleged shell companies related to Nitin Gadkari’s Purti group. In 2012, following an RTI disclosure, a number of irregularities were discovered regarding investments in the Purti group, which Gadkari had founded . Quoting the Registrar of Companies records, five of the companies that invested in the Purti group were housed in a chawl in Mumbai, but the owner of the chawl claimed he had never heard of any of the companies. Three other companies were registered in another location in south Mumbai and again the firms were found not to be operating from the location. The skeletons continued to tumble out of the closet , with reports revealing that his driver, accountant and two employees were directors of the firms that invested in the Purti group. In an extensive report, the Times of India had shown that apart from contruction major Ideal Road Builders (IRB), a group of 16 companies had invested in the group most of which had directors who were associates of the BJP president or his family and were often headquartered in fictitious addresses. In May 2013, the Income Tax department assessed the firm as having evaded Rs 7 crore via improper means.On May 13, 2014, ( the eve of Lok Sabha election results) the IT department of Maharashtra cleared Nitin Gadkari’s name and gave him a clean chit saying there is no enquiry/investigation presently pending, thereby opening the doors for him in the new government which was to be led by Narendra Modi. But the case doesn’t just end here. A report in Outlook says, “complicating matters further is a business relationship that his ( Gadkari’s) Purti group later inked with the Essar group. At the end of August 2013, seven weeks after the holiday in the South of France, the Gadkari-led Purti Group announced that it will start 50 outlets where ethanol-blended petrol would be sold at two per cent less than market price. Purti announced a tie-up with Essar Oil Ltd.” What’s even murkier is the fact that the Essar group was named in the 2G chargesheet along with Loop Telecom. The CBI had alleged that the Ruia’s had cheated the DoT by using Loop Telecom as a “front” to secure 2G licences in 2008. Earlier this year, the BJP leader was also  was accused of working for turning the ban against e-rickshaws so that benefits his relatives and the company Purti Green Technologies (PGT). The reports were however denied by Gadkari. Why would a company like Essar extend favours  unless it sees benefit in the long run? Even though Gadkari was not in power back then, he was a politician and is currently Minister of Road Transport and Highways in the Narendra Modi government. The Express report  claims that the Essar group, which has interests in energy, steel, infrastructure projects, have routinely showered gifts and favours to politicians and bureaucrats in exchange for favours and classified information. The report claims that the company has presented ‘high end phones to 200 ‘up and coming politicians’ and even pay the bills said to be around Rs 5,000 – 6,000 per month. It also said that former minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh and Motilal Vora and BJP’s Varun Gandhi referred candidates for jobs in Essar.