For long, not a single politician was found in the leaked data and they soon realized that Indian politicians were probably too smart to leave paper trails even in secret tax jurisdictions. So when Vaidy (P. Vaidyanathan Iyer) stumbled upon one Kejriwal, just like that, he almost said aloud: ‘Really!’ This was Anurag Kejriwal—in no way related or connected to Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi.
As the WhatsApp group came alive with exclamations, none of them could have imagined at that point that the excitement at unearthing what seemed like the Panama Papers’ biggest political connection in India would turn out to be premature.
Anurag Kejriwal, too, was a politician—in fact, the only Indian politician who seemed to have knocked on Mossack Fonseca’s door for opening offshore entities. The Lok Satta party, founded in 2006 by Jayaprakash Narayan, a former IAS officer, had announced this Kejriwal’s candidature for the Delhi assembly elections in December 2013, ten months after he was made the party’s Delhi unit chief. He was, however, expelled following a purported sting operation by a TV channel ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Before his expulsion, he was also a member of the party’s national steering committee.
While Anurag Kejriwal lived in Delhi, he had business interests in Kolkata. On the Mossack Fonseca records, he was the director of three offshore entities and also held power of attorney in another. The family had also floated two private foundations. He and his wife, Uttara, were the primary beneficiaries, and their son, Priyavrata, the final beneficiary.
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Online search engines threw up many links to reports and videos of Anurag Kejriwal, but Vaidy could not find a way to get in touch with the person himself. Then he suddenly found him on Twitter: @anuttar. He also checked with the newspaper’s reporters covering state politics: Anurag Kejriwal did not really ring a bell for most.
Vaidy had got his East Delhi address from the Mossack Fonseca documents but decided to make the first contact through a direct Twitter message. Responding readily, Kejriwal shared his mobile number but it took Vaidy some time to convince him for a meeting. One hot Saturday afternoon in March, Vaidy set out for Kejriwal’s residence in Anand Vihar in East Delhi. He lived in a two-storey building and spotted Vaidy from his balcony on the first floor. He was alone at home, waiting for Vaidy in a small study on the first floor. As Vaidy entered the room, he smelt alcohol.
Kejriwal took time to open up. First, he said he had little to do with offshore entities. When confronted with some details, he seemed to remember having opened an entity since he was in the business of metal trading. But then, Kejriwal and his wife were linked to three offshore entities and two foundations as well.
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Vaidy spent about an hour with him, and took elaborate notes on all the clarifications that he gave. Kejriwal said his political career would be affected if the Indian Express were to write about him. It took a while to convince him that his entire explanation would be carried in the newspaper. He, however, was aware of the pitfalls. Though a chartered accountant had facilitated the setting up of the entities, he realized these could land him in problems and nothing really remained a secret. He said the entities were folded up in 2010.
Since the publication of the Panama Papers, Anurag Kejriwal has joined the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and changed his profile name on Twitter to Chowkidar Positive Kejriwal, just like hordes of BJP supporters did in the run-up to the general elections of 2019.
This excerpt from The Panama Papers: The Untold India Story of the Trailblazing Global Offshore Investigation has been published with permission from Penguin Random House India.