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By:

Abhijit Joshi

31 August 2024 at 3:39:24 pm

The Art of Political Reinvention

From Gadkari’s protégé to Fadnavis’s trusted lieutenant, Chandrashekhar Bawankule’s journey captures shifting power equations within the Maharashtra BJP. By the time Maharashtra politics reaches its next important turn, Chandrashekhar Bawankule may find himself playing a role considerably larger than that of a Revenue Minister. His journey from a grassroots OBC leader shaped by Nitin Gadkari’s political influence to a trusted lieutenant of Devendra Fadnavis, offers an instructive window into...

The Art of Political Reinvention

From Gadkari’s protégé to Fadnavis’s trusted lieutenant, Chandrashekhar Bawankule’s journey captures shifting power equations within the Maharashtra BJP. By the time Maharashtra politics reaches its next important turn, Chandrashekhar Bawankule may find himself playing a role considerably larger than that of a Revenue Minister. His journey from a grassroots OBC leader shaped by Nitin Gadkari’s political influence to a trusted lieutenant of Devendra Fadnavis, offers an instructive window into how power operates within the Maharashtra BJP. The BJP has long maintained a strong political connection with Other Backward Classes (OBCs). This does not place Scheduled Castes, Brahmins, Marathas or other communities outside the party’s political imagination. But OBC voters have occupied an important place in its social strategy, particularly in states such as Maharashtra. Within the state BJP, different leaders have, at different times, cultivated their own political networks. The Mahajan-Munde era had its own cohort. Nitin Gadkari, when he led the state BJP, likewise had leaders who grew under his influence. Bawankule was one of them. Steady Ascent He entered politics as a young worker in the early 1990s, when Gadkari was already a major force in Maharashtra politics. For a young OBC leader from Vidarbha, Gadkari became an important political guide. At the same time, another young politician, Devendra Fadnavis, was steadily establishing himself. The equation became particularly interesting after the BJP-Shiv Sena government came to power in 2014. Fadnavis became Chief Minister and Bawankule was given the Energy portfolio. His proximity to Gadkari was well known. But Maharashtra BJP politics was changing, and Fadnavis was emerging as the state’s central power centre. Despite being a three-time MLA and a senior minister, Bawankule was denied a BJP ticket from Kamptee. The decision generated considerable political discussion. Bawankule himself described Fadnavis and Gadkari as being like a brother and father to him. Fadnavis later acknowledged that denying Bawankule the ticket had hurt the BJP’s performance in parts of Vidarbha. The episode could have permanently damaged his political career. Instead, it became a turning point. Bawankule did not openly fight Fadnavis but gradually adjusted to the changing power structure. His political rehabilitation began, and in 2022 he returned to the centre stage as president of the Maharashtra BJP. The significance of that appointment went beyond organisational rank and distinguishes his trajectory from those of several other senior BJP leaders. Eknath Khadse, Vinod Tawde and Pankaja Munde, at various points, found themselves on different sides of the party’s internal power equations. Tawde moved to Delhi and eventually assumed a major organisational role in the central leadership. Bawankule chose another route: accommodation rather than confrontation. Today, he is Maharashtra’s Revenue Minister and Guardian Minister of Nagpur. Revenue may lack the glamour of some portfolios, but it is among the government’s most powerful and sensitive departments. Land records, property disputes, mutation entries, registration, stamp duty, government land, farmers’ land and caste-related documentation all eventually pass through it. Ambitious Plans Bawankule has therefore sought to make the department more technology-driven and citizen-friendly. His plans include digitising land records, simplifying registration procedures and reducing delays. He has spoken of taking stamp-duty and registration revenue from around ₹55,000 crore in 2024-25 towards ₹1 lakh crore over five years. He has proposed the Panand Rasta Yojana to provide access roads to farms across thousands of villages. The department has also moved towards faster land surveys. In March 2026, the government announced the appointment of licensed private surveyors to address manpower shortages and accelerate land measurement under the E-Mojni system. Yet, the same portfolio has placed Bawankule at the centre of controversies. The Mundhwa land deal involving Parth Pawar became a political issue, with Bawankule overseeing a committee inquiry into alleged irregularities. He rejected allegations that he had given a clean chit, saying the inquiry had been extended to examine the matter properly. Another controversy involved allegations concerning a BJP MLA’s firm and land. Former Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole publicised a probe letter and alleged large-scale irregularities. The matter became another political confrontation, with allegations and counter-allegations feeding into the wider debate over the Revenue Department. For a minister handling land and revenue, controversies may be difficult to avoid. But they also constitute a political test. Bawankule’s larger challenge, however, is not land. It is OBC-Maratha politics. This has acquired particular importance with Manoj Jarange Patil’s continuing agitation for Maratha reservation and the demand for Kunbi certificates for eligible Marathas. Jarange has targeted Bawankule over allegations that some Kunbi certificates were being invalidated. Bawankule has denied influencing the certification process. The confrontation became personal when Jarange mocked Bawankule and made remarks involving his family. Bawankule responded emotionally, saying criticism of him was one thing, but bringing his mother and family into political attacks was painful. Yet he has also tried to keep the political door open. He has repeatedly maintained that the BJP wants justice for the Maratha community while protecting existing OBC reservation. This gives Bawankule a distinctive political identity. He is an OBC leader, but also a senior minister who works closely with Fadnavis and remains connected to Gadkari’s political network. If he can position himself not as the “OBC face fighting the Maratha movement” but as the minister seeking a constitutional and practical solution acceptable to all communities, his political stature could rise considerably. That will require results. Revenue reforms must reach ordinary farmers and landowners. Digital land records must reduce corruption rather than create new problems. Investigations into land irregularities must be seen as independent. Above all, Bawankule must navigate the OBC-Maratha question without becoming the face of a caste confrontation. His political journey suggests that he has already learned one lesson: survival in politics depends not only on how strongly one fights, but on how intelligently one adjusts. The man who once lost his Assembly ticket now sits at the centre of Maharashtra’s political and administrative machinery. (The writer is a political observer. Views personal)

India waits to lasso diamantaire Mehul Choksi

Mumbai: India rubbed its hands gleefully as the Belgium Police honoured its request to arrest the absconder diamantaire Mehul Chinubhai Choksi – more than seven years after he, along with his nephew Nirav Deepak Modi - allegedly duped the Punjab National Bank of nearly Rs. 13,800-crores.

 

The scam involving the ‘Mehul Mama-Nirav Bhanja’ erupted in Jan 2018, after the PNB lodged a complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

 

By then the kin, along with many of their family members, winked and slipped out of the country, leaving a rattled India rubbing its palms in disappointment.

 

A political-cum-financial storm raged, embarrassing the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi a year before the Lok Sabha elections.

 

Multiple agencies launched a multi-pronged probe into what became the biggest banking scam in the past quarter century – and almost four times bigger than the stock market-cum-banking fraud the late Big Bull Harshad Mehta had inflicted on the Indian economy 33 years ago (in April 1992) – when it was just opening up.

 

In Belgium

According to official reports, Choksi was living with his Belgium citizen-wife Preeti in Antwerp, a global diamond hub, presumably for the past 18 months on a ‘residency permit’ acquired through questionable means, for medical reasons.

 

Earlier, he shot to the headers (June 2021) while being taken in a wheelchair to a court by the Dominican Republic's Police on charges of sneaking into the small country in the Caribbean Sea, North America.

 

Interestingly, as the Antigua & Barbuda government initiated the process to cancel his citizenship acquired through an investor visa, Choksi had suddenly gone ‘missing’ till he surfaced in the Dominican Republic.

 

The April 2025 action by Belgium followed a request by India’s CBI and the financial frauds specialist Enforcement Directorate (ED) to nab Choksi as the InterPol had revoked his Red Corner Notice in 2023.

 

Mama and Bhanja

‘Mama’ Choksi is the founder-owner of Gitanjali Group while ‘bhanja’ Nirav’s Firestar plus other companies – and the duo, with some PNB officials hand-in-glove – conspired to make a ‘mamu’ of not only PNB, but other banks, as it subsequently tumbled out.

 

After making a quiet exit, Choksi was detected living in the verdant Antigua & Barbuda Isles (West Indies), then attempted entry to the Dominican Republic, was sent back to Antigua & Barbuda and then went to Belgium where he was nabbed on Sunday.

 

Similarly, Modi was found sauntering on the streets of London and nabbed in March 2019. He remains in jail there since India's extradition is still pending.

 

However, India is keeping its fingers crossed that it may finally lay hands on Choksi, bring him to India and face trial in the PNB scam, though it may take time.

 

Born in Mumbai (1959) and educated in Gujarat, Choksi, 66, and wife Preeti have three children.

 

The Rs. 13,800-crore PNB scam

In the modus operandi revealed after India’s second-largest PSU bank PNB admitted it was scammed, Choksi and Modi used fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) to get overseas credits or loans from Indian banks.

 

The PNB first informed the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) of the fraud and then lodged a criminal complaint with the CBI in Jan. 2018, plus another CBI complaint in Feb, that led to a FIR against Modi and Choksi and their companies.

 

The ED entered the scene to probe the allegations of money-laundering through the LoUs – which they allegedly misused to avail short-term business finances from foreign branches of Indian banks.

 

The probe said that the duo were availing the LoUs from the PNB’s Brady House Branch from March 2011, and over the next six-seven years, managed to get a whopping 1,200-plus LoUs like a breeze with the help of some friendly bankers within.

 

Post-scam, the gold-diamond companies Gitanjali Group and Firestone Group with multiple operations in India and abroad have largely wound up, while some personal assets of the mama-bhanja have been auctioned to recover a part of the dues.

 

ED's plea to declare Choksi fugitive stuck for seven years

Even as absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi, a key accused in the Punjab National Bank loan fraud case, has been arrested in Belgium, the ED's plea to declare him a fugitive economic offender has been pending before a court in Mumbai for nearly seven years.


Choksi, 65, and his nephew diamantaire Nirav Modi are the prime accused in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB bank loan fraud case. Choksi was arrested in Belgium following an extradition request by Indian probe agencies, official sources said on Monday.


The Enforcement Directorate had filed the application in July 2018, seeking to declare Choksi an FEO and confiscate his assets under provisions of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.


However, the matter has witnessed repeated delays owing to a barrage of applications filed by the accused in the PMLA court and the Bombay High Court alleging procedural lapses in the Enforcement Directorate's plea.


"The court is kept busy with frivolous applications, and hearing on our application to declare him (Choksi) an FEO has been adjourned for the past seven years,” an ED officer had said after the hearing was once again deferred this February.


"The court should have continued the hearing and taken a decision on the future course of action once the application was moved," the officer had said.

He had urged the court to take note of the repeated filing of similar applications and to not entertain them.


Choksi's lawyer had informed the court that the accused was undergoing treatment for suspected cancer in Belgium and intended to file an application in connection with his health.


Under the FEO Act, an individual can be declared a Fugitive Economic Offender if a warrant has been issued against him for an offence involving Rs 100 crore or more and he has left India while refusing to return. Once declared an FEO, the person's property can be confiscated by the investigating agency.


Choksi had challenged the ED's application in the Bombay High Court, alleging that the agency "had not followed proper procedure before filing the application and, hence, it stands vitiated".


However, in September 2023, the High Court dismissed his plea, ruling that the ED had adhered to the prescribed format under the FEO Act. It also vacated a stay on the special court's proceedings.


Despite this, the hearing on declaring Choksi FEO could not commence, with Choksi continuing to file applications before the special court through his lawyers.


While most of these pleas have been dismissed, a few remain pending. His latest attempt to stall proceedings through a plea to recall the notice issued on the ED's FEO application was rejected in December 2023.


According to ED officials, Choksi left India under suspicious circumstances in early January 2018.


Shifting stance

Choksi's counsel has argued that the ED kept shifting its stance on the material grounds for declaring him an FEO and that the suspension of his Indian passport made it impossible for him to return for investigation.

The court, however, rejected this argument, stating that the notice was issued based on accurate information and not based on "wrong facts or mistaken assumptions".


ED claimed the accused left the country under suspicious circumstances in the first week of January 2018.


Nirav Modi has already been declared as an FEO by the special court. He has been lodged in jail in London since 2019.

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