Tag: Deepak Singhal

Patanjali Food Park: How Ramdev Used Pull-Out Threat to Push for More Concessions

The yoga guru-turned corporate king is observing double standards by calling for probity in public life while grabbing favours from governments to expand his business empire.

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev might have cried his lungs out for probity in public life and he still does not tire of raising his voice against black money and irregularities in government working. But when it comes to grabbing favours from the state, he does not mind observing double standards.

A case in glaring demonstration is the allotment of 455 acres of prime land along the Yamuna Expressway in Greater Noida in the name of setting up a giant food park. Using his ‘Yadav’ identity, the saffron-clad yoga guru-turned-corporate king got the original allotment for his multi-billion Patanjali group on special concessional terms during the tenure of the previous Akhilesh Yadav government. And today, he is virtually blackmailing the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government to get more concessions and privileges.

He is also eyeing a Rs 150 crore subsidy that the Union government has offered to anyone setting up mega food parks across the country.

One tweet by the Baba’s Man Friday, Acharya Balkrishnal has literally brought the entire Uttar Pradesh government into submission. And the Adityanath regime is all set to sign on the dotted line, with Ramdev dictating the terms, with special concessions and favours, well beyond what he had already received from the Yadav dispensation.

What brought an otherwise “tough” UP chief minister Adityanath to fall in line with Ramdev was not just a threat by Balkrishna that he would shift his proposed investment from UP to another state if the terms laid down by Patanjali were not conceded by the state government. That Adityanath would give in so easily to a threat was inconceivable. Evidently, it was also a strong word from BJP president Amit Shah, whom Ramdev met recently.

Strangely, neither Adityanath nor his team of dealing bureaucrats cared to raise the most pertinent question – which Indian state was ready to dole out a huge chunk of 455 acres? And that too on the borders of the national capital.

The fact of the matter is that such a huge parcel of land was given away to Patanjali for a song. The group was required to shell out the official ‘circle rate’ for only 20% of the land. The Akhilesh government granted Patanjali a special concession of 25% in the cost of land for the remaining 80% chunk (about 370 acres). Under the rules, such a concession was available only to the IT industry and that too for setting up a big software technology park . However, Ramdev managed to get the Akhilesh regime to bend the rules for his company

The revision in the terms of land allotment with the freebies and concessions are understood to be high on the agenda of the next meeting of the UP cabinet scheduled on June 12. Credit: PTI

While Ramdev and Balkrishna might be busy blaming the bureaucracy for the “delay” in their “investment” plans, the fact remains that this special concession in the price of land was systematically pushed by none other than the then UP chief secretary Deepak Singhal, now chargesheeted in another matter.

As per the original terms of allotment, Patanjali was allowed to sublease only upto 20% (91 acres) of the land for a period of not more than seven years. But Ramdev is understood to have insisted on relaxation in the original terms of allotment.

The urgency for subleasing 20% of the land arose because of the subsidy of Rs 150 crore offered by the Centre. The subsidy could be given only to the company that was setting up the food park. However, in this case, the original allotment of land in 2016 was made in the name of Patanjali Ayurved, Haridwar, while the proposal for setting up a food park was made by Patanjali Food and Herbal Park Noida Pvt Ltd, two independent corporate entities.

What Ramdev was demanding from the UP government was permission to transfer 60 acres of land in the name of Patanjali Food and Herbal Park Noida Pvt. Ltd. In addition, he wanted that while he set up his food park on 30 acres of land, the remaining 30 acres out of this packet should be allowed to be subleased further to whoever Ramdev wanted anytime later. That is where lies the first catch. Ramdev does not want the first transfer of 30 acres from his one company to the other to be treated as a “sub-lease”.

The second catch lies in Ramdev’s next demand for another sub-lease of 56 acres, which is precisely 20% of the remaining 370 acres’ parcel of land. That clearly gives Ramdev the freedom to play with 116 acres of priceless land along the Yamuna Expressway as against his original entitlement of 91 acres. Once the restriction of seven years on the sub-lease gets lifted, as per Patanjali’s demand, Ramdev would be sitting over a goldmine. And for all you know, the sub-leasing alone could get him the bulk of his much-proclaimed promised investment of Rs 1,410 crore in UP.

Yet the Adityanath government is working overtime to dole out everything that Ramdev desires, ostensibly because of Balkrishna’s threat to pull out their proposed investment from UP. Significantly, this investment figures prominently in Adityanath’s list of expected investments tapped through his own initiative – the much-hyped Investor’s Summit in February last. The revision in the terms of allotment with the freebies and concessions are understood to be high on the agenda of the next meeting of the state cabinet scheduled on June 12.

Akhilesh Finally Asserts Himself as Yadav Family Feud Intensifies

Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger brother is now demanding he be given back of all his portfolios and the reinstatement of his favourite bureaucrat Deepak Singhal

File photo of UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (left) with his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Credit: PTI

File photo of UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav (left) with his father Mulayam Singh Yadav. Credit: PTI

Lucknow: The cold war in Uttar Pradesh’s ruling Yadav clan is now in the open. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, who had been taking it lying down for four-and-a-half years, has finally mustered up courage to rise to the occasion and tell his overbearing chacha Shivpal Yadav that enough is enough.

Ever since he anointed his son Akhilesh as the CM and thus political heir in 2012, Samajwadi Party supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav has been balancing the demands of his brother Shivpal Yadav.

Akhilesh had been bearing repeated public reprimands from his father silently all this while and could not assert himself even where it was required. Others, including chacha Shivplal, younger brother of Mulayam Singh Yadav, took advantage of the situation and continued to treat the chief minister like a family youngster. Political circles began to call UP a state with “five and a half chief minsters” of which Akhilesh was described as the “half”.

Akhilesh displayed the first signs of assertion barely two months back when he shot down Shivpal Yadav’s plan for merger of mafia don-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari’s Qaumi Ekta Dal (QED) with the Samajwadi Party. Having had an earlier showdown with his chacha when he tried but could not prevent the re-entry of Amar Singh in the party, Akhilesh made sure that he did not have to suffer another humiliation. He ensured that the merger with Mukhtar’s party did not happen, arguing that any such action would only give a bad name to the SP at a time when the state was heading for the next poll in March 2017.

Shivpal hit back shortly thereafter by getting his man Friday, Deepak Singhal, on the chief secretary’s chair, despite stiff opposition from Akhilesh, who did not approve of the 1982 batch IAS officer because of his allegedly questionable past. Akhilesh’s insistence that Singhal’s induction to the top job would tarnish the image of his government fell on deaf ears as father Mulayam preferred to oblige younger brother Shivpal.

It took Akhilesh two months to muster up courage and surprise all and sundry by giving marching orders to Singhal, who had already caused him much embarrassment in various ways.

What gave him the strength to rise from his docility was the high court order that turned down the government’s plea for withdrawal of a CBI probe against his highly tainted mining minister Gayatri Prasad Prajapati, who enjoyed close proximity to both Mulayam and Shivpal. All along, Akhilesh had found himself helpless against the minister, under whose watch illegal mining was touching new heights. Barely 48 hours after the court rejected the government’s plea to withdraw the CBI probe against Prajapati, Akhilesh cracked the whip on him and ordered his ouster from the cabinet.

According to informed sources, Akhilesh made it a point to take his father into confidence and he also convinced him on the necessity to sack Prajapati to avert heat from the CBI falling on any member of the ruling Yadav clan.

While Mulayam was convinced about the action against Prajapati, the firing of Singhal was viewed by him as some kind of defiance by the son. After all, Singhal’s appointment was made at the behest of not just Shivpal but also Amar Singh and above all Mulayam himself as also his (Mulayam’s) blue-eyed principal secretary to chief minister Anita Singh, with whom, too, Akhilesh could never get along.

This powerful lobby managed to easily provoke Mulayam into divesting Akhilesh of the position of state Samajwadi Party chief and entrusting the post to Shivpal. Akhilesh retaliated by stripping Shivpal of the key portfolios of public works, revenue and irrigation – considered as ‘goldmines’ of the government. Instead, Shivpal was given the far less lucrative social welfare ministry.

Clearly the knives were out as such a drastic step was the last thing the chacha could have imagined in his wildest of dreams from the nephew.

Mulayam continued to keep himself perched in Delhi and Shivpal joined him Wednesday afternoon . Even as the war between chacha and nephew was on, both were particular about not making a single utterance directly against each other. Yet much could be easily read between the lines.

“I take certain decisions while Netaji (Mulayam) takes other important decisions but interference by some outsiders had led to problems” Akhilesh told mediapersons in Lucknow. Shivpal, on the other hand went about harping on just one thing – “no one in the party has the authority to override whatever Netaji decides to do; and I will abide by whatever he tells me to do”, thereby ,making it loud and clear that the buck stops only with Mulayam.

Sure enough, he is not content with the state party chief’s position he has usurped from Akhilesh; he wants more. If insiders are to be believed, Shivpal is not ready to settle for anything less than restoration of the multiple portfolios as also reinstatement of Deepak Singhal – a deal that would leave Akhilesh completely high and dry.

The ball is in Mulayam’s court and all eyes are now on the ailing septuagenarian and veteran of many battles on how he pulls off another political balancing act.