Chandigarh: The fate of Sirsa MLA and Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) chief Gopal Kanda hangs in the balance with a Delhi court set to deliver its verdict Tuesday in the Geetika Sharma abetment to suicide case in which he is the main accused.
A former air hostess with Kanda’s now-defunct MLDR airlines, Sharma was found dead on 5 August, 2012 at her residence in Delhi. She left a suicide note accusing Gopal Kanda of harassing and ‘misusing’ her with the active aid of his HR Manager Aruna Chadha.
At the time of his arrest in connection with the case in 2012, Kanda was a minister in the then Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government in Haryana. He was also booked for rape, but that charge against him was dropped by the Delhi High Court in 2013.
Six months after Geetika’s death, her mother Anuradha Sharma died by suicide on February 16, 2013, leaving behind a suicide note accusing Kanda and Chadha of forcing her daughter to take the extreme step.
Cut to 2023 and Kanda’s name resurfaced earlier this month when his party, the Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP), found mention in the list of 38 parties identified as constituents of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The list was shared with the media by the BJP ahead of a meeting of NDA allies held in New Delhi on 18 July. But neither Kanda nor any of his party functionaries were seen taking part in the meeting.
His younger brother Gobind Kanda told ThePrint that their party is part of the NDA but he could not attend the meeting because he had some important work to attend to.
ThePrint reached Gopal Kanda for comment but calls to him went unanswered. This report will be updated when a response is received.
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Political journey
Born in December 1965, Gopal Kanda and his younger brother Gobind started off with small businesses — a radio repair outlet and a shoe store — in Haryana’s Sirsa before the older brother decided to move to Gurugram to try his luck in the real estate sector.
Within a few years, he scripted a rags-to-riches story. Locals in Sirsa knew him as a businessman who made a big fortune in real estate. He was also seen as someone close to the Chautalas when the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) was in power in the state.
In his heyday, Tara Baba ashram, a private religious place in the name of Kandas’ family guru, was a happening address. The Kandas used to invite film stars and singers such as Hema Malini and Narender Chanchal to the ashram during its annual functions.
Once the INLD was out of power in 2005, Kanda began distancing himself from the Chautala clan. Months before the October 2009 assembly election, he announced that he would contest the polls from Sirsa. He won as an Independent, defeating INLD’s Padam Jain and went on to become a junior minister in the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led cabinet.
But his fortune nosedived after he got embroiled in the Geetika Sharma case. He was made to resign from the council of ministers following his arrest in connection with the case and was was granted bail only in September 2013 after spending 13 months in jail.
On May 2, 2014, just before the parliamentary elections, Kanda launched HLP and was seen trying to cozy up with the BJP, citing his father Murli Dhar Kanda’s connections with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). He had claimed then that his father once contested from an assembly seat in Sirsa (in undivided Punjab) on a Jana Sangh ticket.
In the 2014 assembly elections later that year, Kanda lost narrowly in Sirsa to INLD’s Makhan Lal Singla by a margin of 2,938 votes.
He did, however, win in Sirsa in the 2019 assembly polls and instantly offered support to the BJP that fell short of the majority mark by six — having won 40 seats in the 90-member assembly. His younger brother Gobind Kanda, though he lost to INLD’s Ram Chand Kamboj in Rania, relegated Ranjit Singh Chautala of the Congress to the third position.
Just when Kanda’s supporters were hoping that he would be inducted as a minister, former Union minister Uma Bharti in a series of tweets criticised him for his alleged involvement in the Geetika Sharma suicide case. Facing criticism, the BJP rejected his offer of support and aligned with Dushyant Chautala’s Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) to form the government.
The BJP soon realized the importance of the Kanda brothers, and both the BJP and the JJP fielded Gobind Kanda as their joint candidate in the Ellenabad assembly bypoll in November 2021. But the younger Kanda brother lost to Abhay Singh Chautala of the INLD.
Notwithstanding the poll setback, the presence of HLP in the list of NDA constituents suggests that the Kandas are still relevant in Haryana politics.
In June this year, Gopal Kanda and his younger brother was seen making arrangements for Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s 18 June rally in Sirsa. Gopal Kanda, however, reportedly left the venue before Shah’s arrival.
In their 2019 poll affidavits, Gopal and Gobind Kanda had stated their net worth at Rs 95 crore and Rs 65 crore, respectively. Gopal Kanda had also mentioned that he was then facing nine criminal cases, including two where he stood accused of abetment to suicide.
(Edited by Tony Rai)