Sirsa: MLA Gopal Goyal Kanda leans out of the window of a white Toyota Fortuner and waves to the crowd cheering him loudly. Some garland him with bright orange and yellow marigolds, a few seek his blessings. He steps out of the car and joins the group of hundred men and women dancing to the beat of drums from a live band.“He is a free man now!” shouts a supporter while another jostles to give him a box of sweets.
Sirsa in Haryana is celebrating the acquittal of its MLA in connection with the 2012 suicide of air-hostess Geetika Sharma. Now, the leader of Haryana Lokhit Party is poised to resume his political ascent; already, there are whispers of him throwing his lot with the BJP.
Even before the acquittal, Kanda knew he was back in the game. Last month, he reportedly toured villages in Sirsa drumming up support for Amit Shah’s rally. He also received Shah at the Sirsa Air Force Station but, according to local journalists, was asked not to attend the rally given the case against him. And a week before his acquittal, Haryana Lokhit was included in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as the 38th party.
After a decade of battling charges of abetment to suicide, criminal conspiracy, and forgery in court, Kanda’s priority now is pure politics once again. The Haryana Lokhit Party’s fortunes rest on its sole star. Kanda was the only party member to win a seat in the 2019 assembly election.
“I will work on my party’s expansion. My party’s name Lokhit (people’s welfare) speaks for itself and that’s why we decided to be a part of NDA,” said Kanda in his first speech, just a few hours after his acquittal on 25 July.
From launching a new party to starting a now-defunct airline, rolling out a TV channel to running a footwear business, becoming a real estate mogul but failing as a movie producer, and opening Big Daddy — an off-shore casino in Goa with a Las Vegas-inspired cigar lounge — Kanda lived the quintessential entrepreneurial dream of the 2000s. There was the occasional Ponzi scam, but he was living the millionaire dream of owning an airline, and a TV channel. The launch of Big Daddy attracted the likes of Bollywood actors Sanjay Dutt, Amisha Patel, Shamita Shetty, and Haryanvi actor and dancer Sapna Chaudhary.
And then there was a dead body. His empire came crashing down. The eleven-year trial was nothing but eventful.
Kanda flew too high, but this kiss of glamour proved too costly for his politics. To even imagine a political comeback after a criminal trial and masala controversy is audacious. But Kanda is nothing, if not that.
“Had Geetika suicide case not happened, my brother would have been the chief minister of Haryana. He was one of the rising political stars back then,” said Govind Kanda, who joined BJP in 2021, contested the Ellenabad bypoll against Abhay Singh Chautala of Indian National Lok Dal, and conceded defeat.
Also read: Why Gopal Kanda, now acquitted in suicide case, is important for BJP in Chautala bastion Sirsa
‘Not a common man’
Gopal Kanda was not born into wealth. The electrician and high school dropout, according to a Times of India report, Kanda clawed his way to the upper echelons of power and money to become an industrialist and a politician.
In the 1990s, he ran a radio handset shop and later opened a shoe store in Sirsa. But even in his youth, he had the canniness to befriend bureaucrats, businessmen, and babas. He upgraded his shoe shop into a factory and moved into the real estate sector.
The swashbuckling savvy businessman—with a palace in Sirsa’s Bilaspur—has a finger on the pulse of popularity, and his supporters have hitched their bandwagon to his star.
In an affidavit filed for the 2019 assembly election, Kanda listed movable and immovable assets worth about Rs 70 crore.
“Gopal Kanda is not a common man. He is a millionaire. And he has a strong foothold in Sirsa. That’s why he has been winning elections. Someone who can spend crores in an MLA election, and does social work – how can he not win,” said Satish Tyagi, political commentator from Haryana and author ofPolitics of Chaudhar.
Business and politics were always wedded in an unholy, seamy nexus for Kanda. Once close to the Chautalas, Kanda thrived as a businessman when Om Prakash Chautala became the chief minister of Haryana, and flourished during the real estate boom in Gurgaon in the mid-2000s when call centres came to the NCR’s satellite city.
His political ambitions brought him back to Sirsa where he won the assembly seat as an independent candidate and helped Bhupinder Singh Hooda of the Congress form a government in 2009.
“The suicide and the case that followed dented his political career, but now he will once again campaign freely. His supporters know he is innocent and are cheering for him,” the brother said.
Also read: Packed satsangs, concerts — out on parole, Ram Rahim’s virtual presence has his dera buzzing
With the blessings of ‘godmen’
If Kanda has wielded his immense wealth as a tool to barter for power, he has used devotion and charity to amass voters. After wooing the followers of the seer Tara Baba, he turned to the Dera Sacha Sauda supporters of Gurmeet Ram Rahim—the self-styled godman convicted of rape and murder—by invoking his love for kites with the slogan, “Baar baar diya sabko baari, ab dekhein Kanda ki yaari. (You gave a chance to everyone, now give a chance to Kanda and see for yourself)”. But Kanda’s scrambling literally was a kite flyer’s dream.
While campaigning for the 2014 assembly election, the Haryana Lokhit Party adopted the kite as its symbol. This was around the time a photo of Ram Rahim flying a kite went viral in Sirsa. Kanda’s party fielded 75 candidates and used his TV channel to flog the kite symbolism, but lost. The party was routed.
“People in Sirsa know how Kanda used Ram Rahim’s picture to pump up his voters. He was vulnerable. His ground had vanished. So he was doing everything he could from supplying money to using photos,” said a political commentator from Sirsa who did not want to be named.
But in 2019, Kanda won the assembly seat. By then, his association with Geetika Sharma was a distant memory.
“We have seen Geetika come to Sirsa. She had good relations with Kanda,” said Raju Ladwal, who runs a live band business. It was his band that was playing at the procession. In his worldview, Kanda can do no wrong. “This was a conspiracy. Kanda is a god-fearing person.”
After winning the Sirsa assembly seat, Kanda flew to Delhi along with independent MLA from Rania, Ranjit Singh, and Sirsa BJP MP Sunita Duggal to meet the BJP high command. The party was short of a majority and was rallying up independent MLAs to form the government in Haryana. But Kanda, because of his dubious past, was not selected.
In spite of the case, he still hoped for political relevance – that offering of usefulness extended by elected independent politicians across India. But he left nothing to chance while amassing wealth and favour, and courted godmen and blessings.
Kanda started his political career by attending satsangs in villages. They proved to be a fertile hunting ground to build his voter base. He frequented cow shelters and grew close to Tara Baba–a self-styled godman with followers in Sirsa, Fatehabad, and Hisar. When Kanda decided to join politics, he did so on the shoulders of the seer’s followers. By the time Tara Baba died in 2002, Kanda had become the president of Sri Tara Baba Charitable Trust, and was actively working towards converting the godman’s followers into voters.
Kanda used devotion and donations to win hearts. He organised satsangs, gave money to the poor, organised marriages for destitute women, and tried to spin his image as a modern-day Haryana Robin Hood.
“Gopal Kanda has elevated the poor in Sirsa. He is our messiah. He has given free medicine and books to the needy. He has always helped the troubled and the poor. He has also renovated the village temple here,” said Sanjay Kumar, a resident of Jodhka village in Hisar.
Also read: Haryana candidates still visit rape convict Ram Rahim’s Dera, but they keep it low-key
Up and close with glitzy Bollywood
But he wasn’t going the spiritual CSR all the way. The glitz and glamour of Bollywood was a constant lure.
In 2015, Kanda was trying his hands at producing a comedy movie Bhai Must be Crazy,starring Bipasha Basu. The movie was also supposed to star Prakash Raj, Pankaj Kapur,Vijay Raaz, and Sunil Grover, and was to be shot in Bangkok and Nepal. But the project never took off because of the court trial. Kanda’s close aide said that the movie would have drawn attention to him with the trial on at the time.
And then he rolled in the Big Daddy in Goa. The casino on a yacht was touted as “Asia’s biggest and most modern offshore gaming destination.”
Harry Sandhu, Norah Fateh Ali, Nargis Fakhri, and Ali Merchant have all performed at the Big Daddy. Its Instagram page with 45.2k followers exudes glitz and glamour and gallons of cash. Actor Malaika Arora Khan has reportedly visited the casino.
In 2019, after the success of Big Daddy, Kanda changed his party symbol from kite to ship. He saw it as a good omen, a herald of change in fortunes. The kite had to go, just like Ram Rahim’s time in prison.
According to astrologer Kamal Pandit, the casino was like his son.
“On the launch of Big Daddy, Gopal Kanda had invited me for the prayers. I had decided the day for the launch. For the past 30 years, before any business deal or political campaign, Kanda has asked me to pick the auspicious date,” said Pandit, who claims to be Kanda’s childhood friend.
That said, Big Daddy also attracted its fair share of controversy. Last year, former Indian cricket captain Sachin Tendulkar accused Big Daddy of morphing his images to promote the casino. Its name cropped up again this year when high-profile gambler Chikoti Praveen was arrested in Thailand, but the casino denied any association with him.
For his family, however, politics was interrupted.
“My brother was so close to becoming a minister again in 2019. The BJP wanted to make him a minister but this Geetika case came in between,” said Govind Kanda.
Sources said that because of money power, political parties are tight-lipped about Kanda’s acquittal. The MLA has already met with CM Manohar Lal Khattar to discuss Sirsa, but within Haryana’s corridors of power, the silence is deafening.
Nobody is ready to speak about Kanda. There is fear that any remark–in support or against–will affect their own political fortunes. Nobody wants to get on Kanda’s bad side.
“The eleven-year trial weakened the Geetika case and it was already known that Kanda would eventually come out clean,” said a lawyer requesting anonymity.
Also read: BJP has detached politics from economics. That’s why it will win Haryana, Maharashtra
Road to Baba’s natural heir
A sprawling palace with high walls spread across five acres of land, Kanda’s house is the centre of attraction in Sirsa. Like its owner, it is flamboyant and imposing. The two massive iron-brown gates are always guarded by a dozen bouncers. Among local residents, rumours are rife. The palace has a helipad, gym, lawn tennis court, and horse stable, said one of Kanda’s supporters.
Behind this huge fort is Tara Baba’s 13-acre campus, which houses the charitable trust and a hospital. There is a huge dazzling office of the Kanda brothers where they hold political and business meetings. The huge palace is said to be constructed by masons from Gujarat using red stone from Rajasthan.
“Tara Baba was a reclusive saint and would meet only a few people. Kanda’s family was one of them,” said Surender Bhatia, who runs an NGO for the disabled and a local news channel in Sirsa.
Tara Baba’s followers turned into Gopal Kanda’s voters after the saint died in 2002. Kanda knew how to pay back in gratitude too. Soon after, Kanda made fortunes in the real estate business in Gurgaon. He constructed a huge Tara Baba abode that witnesses a thousand devotees every year. The Kanda brothers were seen as the “natural” heir of Tara Baba.
“They organised satsangs, and gave free food and money to the poor. They also constructed temples and took care of cow shelters,” said Bhatia.
The Tara Baba abode became so big that it started to attract prominent personalities, a hat-tip to Kanda’s sun-doesn’t-go-down-on-me power. Bollywood actors and musicians, including Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Sartaj, Jaya Kishori have visited, while Dhirendra Krishna Shastri of Bageshwar Dham is scheduled to come for a day, Kanda’s close aide said.
“He didn’t have a long relationship with us. He left us and went to Hooda and then left them and went to BJP. The government should inquire where he got his empire from. And what they have done for this,” INLD leader Abhay Chautala said.
Also read: If BJP makes Gopal Kanda minister, there’ll be a zillion Geetikas, says airhostess’ brother
Back to politics, close to power
Nobody talks about 23-year-old Geetika Sharma who worked at his now-defunct MDLR Airlines, which Kanda launched in 2007. In August 2012, Sharma died by suicide at her father’s house in Delhi’s Ashok Vihar. She left a note accusing Kanda and his associate Aruna Chadha of sexually harassing her.
“That morning, I had alerted Kanda that something wrong would happen that would affect his politics,” said the astrologer. “And within few days, the news of Geetika’s suicide was all over the television.”
Kanda, the founder and director of MDLR Airlines, offered his resignation to then-CM Hooda, but went underground. For ten days, the Delhi Police hunted for him in Sirsa and Gurgaon. On the eleventh day, Kanda surrendered, but not without drama.
First, Govind Kanda arrived at Ashok Vihar police station and declared that his brother would be turning himself in. The Bollywood-style over-the-top surrender saw Kanda evade four checkpoints. He finally walked into the police station with his entourage, and the crew of his STV Haryana News. He was arrested and spent a year and a half in jail before he was granted bail in March 2014 after the rape charge was dropped.
“I organised a 21-day sundar path (prayer). Days later, he was out on bail,” said Pandit.
Within two months of coming out on bail, Kanda launched the Haryana Lokhit Party, but faced bitter defeat in the 2014 assembly election despite using religion heavily during the campaign.
Geetika’s case was the most high-profile, but not the only one. In 2008, Income Tax officers were assaulted by the Kanda brothers and their associates during the raid of MDLR Airlines in Gurgaon, a year before it shut down. In 2012, when Gopal was a minister, he and his brother were given a clean chit.
Kanda is also said to have benefitted from Ponzi schemes – a fraudulent scheme that involves paying existing investors in a non-existent enterprise with the money collected from new investors. In 2016, when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested Peal Groups promoter Nirmal Singh Bhangoo for allegedly running a collective investment scheme running into more than Rs 50,000 crore, several politicians, including Kanda, were named as beneficiaries. The MLA was booked by the Economic Offences Wing, but once again, the investigation never took off.
With all cases against him now sorted, Kanda is eyeing a Cabinet berth in the BJP government. Four political analysts pointed out that since 2014, after the BJP came to power at the Centre, Gopal Kanda has been touting his father Murlidhar Kanda’s political roots. He was a criminal lawyer who fought the election on the Jana Sangh ticket in 1952, but lost.
“Kanda has been talking about how his family always supported Jana Sangh and now the RSS. This is another political gimmick. He has money and wants power at any cost,” said a businessman in Sirsa, requesting anonymity.
On 27 July, Kanda met CM Khattar in Delhi after his acquittal. Kanda posted the picture on social media where he could be seen giving a bouquet to the CM with a huge smile on his face.
Khattar is the latest in a long line of current and former chief ministers that Kanda has cozied up to, from Chautala to Hooda.
“Now, he is a part of the NDA. No party has isolated him. If the Congress wins in Haryana, he will shift. There is no political morality left now,” political commentator Tyagi said.
(Edited by Prashant)