Faker Turns Political Shaker !

 

 BY R.K.MISRA

Fakes, phonies and frauds are like delayed action fuses flaunting access to rake-in a mountain of moolah. They  swish - simmer for long and go-off when least expected spilling political gut and governance-gore all across the ground.

Gujarat, is experiencing its second slow blow burn, within two months in Sanjay Prakash Rai ’Sherpuria’ after his predecessor Kiran Patel made a mockery of  the country’s much vaunted security apparatus managing Z-plus  security in the eagle-eyed environment of Jammu and Kashmir .

If Patel faces at least five cases of cheating and fraud including impersonating as an officer of the Prime Minister’s Office(PMO) and defrauding the brother of a former Gujarat  BJP minister of his posh Ahmedabad  bungalow, Sanjay Sherpuria seems to have taken con  to quite a different level altogether. Patel was arrested in the first week of March from Srinagar and Sherpuria from Lucknow on April 26.

A businessman who created  numerous fake companies  and defaulted on loans ,Sherpuria was arrested by the Special Task force (STF) following allegations that he and his team were conning individuals and corporates of hefty sums by claiming links to the PMO. Hailing from Gazipur in Uttar Pradesh, he has extensive  business and political links in Gujarat though he mainly resides in Delhi.

Like Kiran Patel, Sanjay was also projecting his proximity with RSS and BJP big-wigs including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, RSS  chief Mohan Bhagwat, BJP national president J.P. Nadda and a host of others to create a network of contacts that siphoned of large sums of money from gullible but cash rich individuals. Unlike his Ahmedabad kin in crime, Sanjay cruised  the big league. The FIR filed against him mentions a prominent industrialist donating Rs six crores to his foundation. The similarity in modus operandi was  getting oneself photographed with top political and governmental personalities and posting them on social media in a bid to authenticate reach to reap financial benefits. There are photographs on twitter wherein Sanjay is seen in the company of union minister Purshottam Rupala engrossed in listening to  the Prime Minister’s “Mann Ki Baat’ programme. Sherpuria’s presence  was also noticed at the Prime Minister’s programme at ISRO in Ahmedabad, wherein he is reported to have expressed his willingness to manufacture 75 nano satellites, say published reports which also point to the presence of ruling party leaders at  his residence to offer condolences when his father  passed away . Another report has it that he had lent Rs 25 lakh as  ‘unsecured loan’ to Manoj Sinha, before the 2019 elections which he had contested  from Gazipur. He has half a dozen books to his credit including one on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In summation, he thus successfully managed to create a façade of a doo-gooder- philanthropist who actually seemed to be a self-proclaimed fixer but was in actual fact a conman. The FIR mentions his involvement in money laundering, bank loan defaults by his companies .

The philanthropic face of this alleged con-kin was reflected through the establishment of Sanjay For Youth, an organization that ran campaigns for  unemployed youth, green environment and even for freedom fighters. He is reported to have used this organizational structure for money laundering and even for siphoning money from corporates. A network of shell companies aided the cash conversion.

Gullible individuals or even troubled corporates capitulating to such characters is understandable. What is not, however is that Sanjay was felicitated with an award presented to him at the hands of  industrialist Ratan Tata at the 2012 Vibrant Gujarat Summit, which is an official event of the Government of Gujarat, according to published reports.

Interestingly, Sanjay had established a firm, Kandla Energy and Chemicals Ltd(KECL)on March 7,2005.The State Bank of India(SBI) had granted financial assistance of Rs 171.85 crores to it in January 2013.It was classified as a NPA for non-payment of debt in July 2014. The matter figured before the National Company Law tribunal(NCLT) wherein the SBI had put the firm’s dues owed to it at Rs 349.12 crores as on December  31,2022.

 That a faker can turn a political shaker and  manage to climb so far up the ladder by  sheer dint of connections is a sad reflection on the state of prevailing affairs. The man was fraternizing in the corridors of power, rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty, playing to their ego, bolstering their pride and in the process minting millions for himself. The fact that he was a bank defaulter was in public domain and yet not one in the monitoring or security establishment got triggered to investigate until matters reached an almost breaking point. If Kiran Patel’s undoing was his attempts to chair ‘official’ meetings, it was the sheer audacity of the man from Sherpur village who had acquired an air of  immunity that did him in.

http://odishapostepaper.com/edition/4487/orissapost/page/9

http://epaper.lokmat.com/articlepage.php?articleid=LOKTIME_NPLT_20230503_6_1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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