Rai has been arrested by CBI over alleged dubious transactions worth Rs 100 crore, and suspicion that he used false information to gain access to airports.
New Delhi: He rubs shoulders with the high and mighty, drives luxury cars, travels in chartered planes, and allegedly owns at least a dozen properties, including in Delhi’s upscale Greater Kailash.
His security detail includes a posse of former Special Protection Group personnel. He is a central government-accredited journalist, and also a director in an aviation firm. Also, he is now under arrest.
There were two kinds of reactions when Upendra Rai was arrested this week for alleged cheating and criminal conspiracy: Howls of protest from supporters against his “victimisation”, and furtive sniggers from those who suggested it was only a matter of time for the “powerbroker”.
Over the past few days, Rai was the subject of a series of alleged investigative reports by a portal named pgurus.com, where he was accused of money laundering and criminal links to some senior Congress leaders.
His arrest pertains to alleged dubious transactions to the tune of Rs 100 crore, and allegations that he used false information to gain access to airports across India. In its reportage, pgurus.com had pointed out that while Rai possessed Press Information Bureau (PIB) accreditation as a full-time journalist, he secured the airport entry pass by passing himself off as a director for quality control in a Delhi-based company named Air One Aviation.
The allegations against him include not being technically qualified to hold the Air One Aviation post, and not having declared this role in his application for PIB accreditation, which grants journalists access to government offices.
According to CBI officers, in 2017, Rai’s bank accounts showed credits of Rs 79 crore and debits of Rs 78.51 crore.
Currently, Rai is the chairman and editor-in-chief of a media group he founded, ‘ThePrintlines’, which runs a news website and plans to launch a TV channel, a newspaper and a magazine.
In a post on the website, Rai has hit out at the allegations against him: “As far as holding a PIB card is concerned, that is my right as a journalist for 21 years,” he said. “I have got the airport entry pass being a director quality control in Air One Aviation, a chartered plane company. I have never tried to hide this fact and there is no law in the country which bars me from holding a PIB card and airport entry pass.”
He has also filed a Rs 100 crore defamation suit against pgurus.com.
The rise of Upendra Rai
Sherpur, a village on the banks of the Ganga in UP’s Ghazipur district, is where Rai, 36, traces his roots.
It was while pursuing his undergraduate studies at Lucknow University, in the late 1990s, that Rai had his first brush with journalism when he came in touch with Girish Mishra, then heading Sahara news channels in the UP capital.
He joined Sahara as a media intern, and subsequently moved to Maharashtra to join the news channel’s Mumbai bureau. In 2002, he joined Star News, now known as ABP News, as one of its first employees.
Two year later, he joined Network18, where he was part of the team that launched CNBC Awaaz and CNBC TV18 along with veteran journalist Sanjay Pugalia and others. In 2005, he was back with Star News, and less than five years later, joined Sahara Group as editor and news director. He was just 27 at the time.
It was during this fresh stint with the group that Rai developed a strong rapport with chairman Subrata Roy Sahara and his power and clout started strengthening, insiders say. The fact that he had been appointed the editor at such a young age caught everyone’s attention. His name briefly surfaced in connection with the Niira Radia tapes, but nothing ever came of it.
“I met him when he was with Star News and found him to be a person absolutely different from what he was supposed to be as a journalist,” said former Samajwadi Party leader and Rajya Sabha member Amar Singh.
“At one point in time, he was more powerful in Sahara Group than Subrata Roy’s son Seemanto Roy and group CEO O.P. Srivastava. I warned Subrata about this gentleman, but he was absolutely blind when it came to Upendra Rai,” he added.
Singh said Rai was the reason he stopped talking to Subrata.
In January 2015, Rai changed jobs again, moving as group editorial adviser to Businessworld magazine. But his friendship with the Sahara chief continued and he was back at the company within months, this time as the group CEO and editor-in-chief.
It was around this time that Roy was jailed for failing to repay investors. With the group facing a financial crunch, Rai started looking for other options.
In May 2016, Rai joined Tehelka as CEO and editor-in-Chief, but quit in March this year to launch ThePrintlines.
No one knows the exact details about his alleged properties, but his media friends say in private that he owns more than a dozen flats across Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and other parts of the country. His house in Greater Kailash is said to cost an estimated Rs 20 crore.
His political clout and influence
While the pgurus.com reportage focused on Rai’s alleged Congress links, his wide network of political connections is said to transcend party and ideological lines, as well as borders.
His Facebook page is flooded with photographs of him with noted politicians of the Congress, the BJP as well as the Samajwadi Party.
When his mother Radhika passed away in January 2016, Rai organised a prayer meeting at Delhi’s Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium that was attended by the likes of Amar Singh, Rajiv Shukla, Dr Harsh Vardhan, Janardan Dwivedi, and Manoj Tiwari. Playback singer Suresh Wadekar was invited from Mumbai for the prayer song, while noted Urdu poet Munnawar Rana read his poetry at the event.
At the ‘Brahmabhoj’ subsequently organised in his mother’s honour, huge pandals in Sherpur hosted around 50,000 people. Shivpal Singh Yadav, then the UP PWD minister, flew in aboard a helicopter along with other state cabinet ministers. The same day, Shivpal announced the construction of a bridge to connect Rai’s village to the nearest town, Gehmar.
Rai is invited as a guest to a number of RSS events too. In January, he was a ‘special guest’ at a cultural programme organised by the RSS Vidya Bharti in Allahabad that was inaugurated by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath.
In March, at an event in Delhi, he shared the stage with union MoS for finance Shiv Pratap Shukla and RSS leader Krishna Gopal.
In March last year, he organised a special felicitation ceremony for former Mauritius prime minister and president Anirudh Jugnauth at The Ashok, Delhi, which was attended by leaders from the BJP as well as the Congress.
A local hero
For locals, especially his caste brethren Bhumihars, Rai is no less than a hero who has made it big for himself. His lavish lifestyle and fancy cars, including a Mercedes Maybach, have served as inspiration for a number of young people, who make a beeline to see him whenever he visits Sherpur.
“He is the pride of Purvanchal and takes keen interest in the development of the region,” said noted Bhojpuri singer Gopal Rai. In March 2016, Gopal Rai organised a ‘Garha Mahotsav’ in Balia, where the journalist was the chief guest along with Bhojpuri actor Kunal.
“I feel sad when my local brothers leave their home and family to earn Rs 10,000-12,000/month in cities like Delhi. They should better look for options and a life of dignity back here,” Rai said in his speech at the time.
The allegations against Rai have taken a lot of people by surprise, people who say they refuse to believe any of it.
“It is just an attempt to harass a hard-working journalist like Upendra Rai and we condemn it,” said Anil Dwivedi, the president of UP Journalist Association.
“I have known him for the last six or seven years. He is someone who rose very fast in the media industry and balanced editorial and commercial interests of the organisation he worked with,” he added.
Laofers always try to be fixers and extort money from the corrupt.
Both should be shot dead.