The Patel Connection

Welcome to power-brokering, Bombay-style. If Thackeray is the self-advertised "remote control" of the Shiv Sena-BJP government, Patel is one of two or three men who are close enough to him to lean across and suggest which might be a good button to press

For the record, Patel is merely chief of the Autoriders Group (1994 turnover: Rs 550 crore), a company that sells Maruti cars, Kinetic Honda scooters and Telco trucks, finances automobiles and holds the Hertz Rent-a-Car franchise. But that's only one-half of the story. It is the rest of the saga—the astonishing story of the rise and rise and the eventual emergence of the 42-year-old businessman as a major mover-shaker in Maharashtra—that has caught political and business observers unawares.

Over the last 10 months, Patel's tyre-marks have been spotted all over the political turf. He was more than just a bystander in the two biggest events in the state—the release of Sanjay Dutt and the scrapping (and revival of negotiations) of the Enron project.

As a Congress leader says: "It's all very well for Thackeray to decry the Congress culture. But he has to admit that what Suresh Kalmadi was to Sharad Pawar, Patel is emerging to him (Thackeray) today, though probably less suave. A more accessible face to the hand that calls the shots." Coincidentally, Kalmadi's family, like Patel's, sells Marutis.

So swift and conspicuous has Patel's ascent as a Thackeray aide been that people are asking if this is really the man who opposed the Sena's Marathi-only education policy not very long ago, and organised pre-election rallies of Gujaratis in support of Pawar on the eve of last February's Assembly polls.

The short answer is: he is. How Patel shifted his loyalties so effortlessly and how Thackeray—an instinctively distrustful person, according to Patel himself—trusted the defector, no one knows. But then, there are no permanent friends in politics, and no permanent foes.

?"Balasaheb and I have known each other since 1985. I took an instant liking to him and today we share a father-son relationship," says Mukesh Patel. "Even if he asks me to jump from the 23rd floor of the Oberoi Towers, I will."?

The cynics may say that like all good businessmen, Patel knows how to worship the rising sun. And, to be sure, he has friends in most parties. Atal Behari Vajpayee has visited his ancestral home in Dhule; Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde and state Congress bigwigs Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ramarao Adik are his bosom pals.

But, says a seasoned journalist, a more credible answer lies in the manner in which the Sena-BJP combine romped home in the Assembly elections. Dismissed by opinion polls as also-rans, the alliance suddenly found itself plonk in the pulpit. Outside the government, no one knew who was in charge, and how to deal with them.

At an infamous party hosted by a builder to felicitate the government, for instance, one of the Hinduja brothers is said to have accosted Thackeray to make a great show of their friendship, only to be rebuffed. Patel, says the journalist, was born of such circumstances. He emerged as a more acceptable via media between the government and the public (witness: Sanjay Dutt) and the government and industry (witness: Enron).

"In Marathi, we have a proverb, ' Sonara kadoon kaan tochne ' (if you want to do something unpleasant like piercing an ear, get the goldsmith to do it)," points out a top bureaucrat. "Patel is doing justthat for Balasaheb. And he doesn't in the least mind it. He has the time and the inclination." And probably the ambition, too.

Patel, however, describes his friendship with Thackeray as personal rather than political. "I don't advise him on government matters," he insists. In fact, he says he doesn't even try to screen visitors and decide who Thackeray should meet and who he should not. ("I tried but he asked me to shut up and not teach him my vyaparigiri .")

?The two meet at least twice a week over drinks and dinner, and for as many as five to six hours at a stretch. Patel doesn't share such an equation with either of Thackeray's chosen ones, Raj or Uddhav. Thackeray, his aides say, believes that Patel has a sizeable following among Bombay's 33 lakh Gujarati population which can be worked to the Sena's advantage. Bombay's cash-flush "Gujjus" closely identify themselves with the BJP but continue to fight shy of its more militantly Hindu ally. Thackeray, they feel, wants to rectify that situation through Patel. At the launch of Limouzine, a fleet of public transport super-deluxe buses, last year(which Thackeray inaugurated to warn protesting cab drivers to behave), the Sena chief said he intended to send Patel to Parliament.

A fact which Patel, who says he is a descendant of Vallabhbhai Patel (his mother Sanjuba is the daughter of the Iron Man's youngest brother, Keshubhai),attests. Says he: "Balasaheb first sounded me out on a political role about five to six years ago. He felt the Nehru family had done enough damage to the country, it was time for a member of the Patel family to right the wrongs. But I was too active in my business. Now he wants me to go to the Rajya Sabha. And I will."

As a matter of fact, political observers believe that the World Gujarati Conference that Patel had planned late last month, but put off because he was incapacitated following a car accident (Thackeray called on him at the Bombay hospital), was to remind the Shiv Sena chief of his promise. But Patel is Gujarati in name only. Elder brother Amrish Patel is aCongress MLA from Shirpur in Dhule district and runs a chain of kerosene and petrol pumps, 46 at last count. Patel senior's pumps were charged with adulteration and, on a petition filed by activist Anil Ghote, an investigation was launched last May.

Maharashtra Minister for Civil Supplies Shobha Phadnavis—who is at the centre of a dal scam—is, however, said to have called off the probe two months later and Dhule Collector Leena Mahendale, who headed the investigation, has since been transferred to Nashik as divisional commissioner.

Patel, however, denies using his close friendship with Thackeray to bring pressure on the government. "Every penny I've earned on my own, without anybody's help. Nobody can accuse me of moving files, except maybe files relating to tribal development that my MLA-brother is very involved in."

Despite all protestations to the contrary, the extent of Patel's involvement in matters of state can be gauged from his conviction that the Enron project will eventually be okayed, come what may. "The terms are good," he stresses. "Nobody can give us better." Then why is the whole procedure taking so long? "If it took us so long to get Sanjay out on bail, even though we were cent per cent sure that he was innocent, bringing back Enron will take some time."

"The national parties have their own powerful Patels, who have we?" used to be an expression of the out-of-power Sena's anti-Gujarati sentiment back in the '70s. Now in charge of its own destiny, it seems to have found an answer. Or has it?