A few years ago, Robert Vadra accompanied Rahul and PriyankaGandhi to Pakistan for a cricket match. Other visitors from India recall he hadjust two questions: whether the hotel gym was up to par and what the partyscene was like. Vadra’s image is that ofa self-obsessed swinger turning family connections into easy money.
Some say that access to the most rarefied social network ofDelhi, so exclusive it disdains page 3, turned Vadra’s head. Plugged into thenexus of top politicians, businessmen and media, he sought to acquire influenceand wealth in his own right. Political ambition, too, surfaced. As did rumoursof a troubled marriage. The veracity of the rumours cannot be established, butthe one thing that can be said is that Vadra has come a long way from thesoft-spoken, fresh-faced, full-bodied aspiring businessman who courted PriyankaGandhi with boy-next-door charm – and nothing else. He had, in conventionalterms, nothing to recommend him to a girl who came from political royalty.
At the very top of the list of FAQs about Vadra is whatPriyanka saw in him. A high-school dropout of average height, unremarkableappearance and no special talent, wealth or lineage, he managed to attract thearistocratic beauty whose father, grandmother and great grandfather had servedas prime ministers of India.
Vadra dealt in costume jewellery, manufactured in his Julenaworkshop. His company, Artex Exports, was a corollary to his father’sMoradabad-based firm, Solid Brass. A penny-ante operation, to say the least.Much later, it was to achieve some measure of growth. He drove a Gypsy andlived, with his mother and sister, in the house his father had built whenbusiness was good. His older brother, Richard, lived in Moradabad with hisfather, then struggling to maintain his failing firm.
Fifteen years later, his mother is the only surviving memberof his clan. He lost his father and two siblings in quick succession to, incoroners’ parlance, “unnatural” deaths. Michelle Vadra, an aerobics instructorturned interior designer, died in an accident in 2001. Richard Vadra committedsuicide in 2003 and Rajindra Vadra in 2009. Robert had disowned them both in2001.
There appears to be little left of the ‘mango man’ Priyankamarried. From being a self-effacing, media-shy, below-the-radar guy, Vadra gaveinterviews hinting at his political ambitions, famously led a motorcycle rallyin Amethi and made no objection to having his name inscribed at every airportin the country (among the list of people exempted from frisking). The changemust have been gradual. An interview with Priyanka in Amethi a couple of yearsafter her marriage revealed a devoted wife who liked “spending time with myhusband”.
Vadra’s rapid change of fortune after his marriage wasreported in the press a year ago and famously inspired a YouTube video onIndia’s fastest growing billionaire, which was later blocked – but not beforeit went viral on the internet. Given the fact that the Saket Hilton which heco-owns with DLF is running at a substantial loss, that he sold off several DLFflats in Gurgaon before they hit peak value and his balance sheets are full oferrors, he is probably not the world’s best businessman. On the other hand, hehas still managed to amass a fortune.
According to BJP sources, both Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swarajhad access to the papers presented by activist Arvind Kejriwal before the mediain early October but they decided not to use them.
The cronyism that enabled Vadra’s quick rise to fortune isnow in the public domain, thanks to Arvind Kejriwal. It has been argued – andrightly – that Congress ministers had no business to jump to his defence. He isnot, after all, an office-bearer of the party. Vadra ought to have conductedhis own defence or simply demanded an independent inquiry. The Congress’ strongdefence of Vadra indicates that he is not, as rumour said, out of favour withthe first family. Things may not be hunky-dory with Rahul but he continues tobe spotted with Priyanka and their children, to whom he is believed to be adevoted father.
However, he is bound to become a political millstone ifKejriwal refuses to let the matter rest or if there are further revelationsabout his business links. As a Nehru-Gandhi by marriage, he does not have thelicence granted to other politicians.
Bhavdeep Kang has been a journalist for 25 years. She was apolitical commentator for magazines like Outlook and India Today and newspaperslike The Telegraph and Indian Express.
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