Ponty's `Invisible' Millions

Ponty Chadha inset in his Centrestage Mall at Noida

They used to call Gurdeep `Ponty’ Chadha by several names - `booze baron’, `the invisible man’ and lastly `Khajanchi’.

For a man whose refugee father used to run a small jaggery crusher, `Ponty’ Chadha who was shot dead by his brother Saturday over a property dispute, had done well for himself. His liquor vends to real estate to film production business was variedly estimated to be worth between Rs 15,000-20,000 crore, most of which was built over the last decade-and-a-half.

The 55-year-old Moradabad born got his first nickname soon after he gained control over some 4,000 liquor vends in Uttar Pradesh through a licensing deal with the Mayawati government which then ruled Uttar Pradesh. `Ponty’ got the rights to decide which liquor firms could sell in U.P and at what price in a market which was worth roughly Rs 6,000 crore.

The second nickname - `invisible man’ came because, though he was constantly in the company of big politicos and Bollywood names, he was rarely, if ever, caught on camera. Chadha knew how to remain in the background.

His `invisible’ name acquired a new meaning when a story started doing the rounds earlier this year. The income tax department raided his business premises at Centrestage Mall in Noida, in February this year after clearance from the very top, in an operation supposed to be top secret.

After opening a three lock vault, all that the tax sleuths managed to find were a few silver coins and three Rs 500 notes. His alleged secret stash of wealth, which many said included money given to him by North Indian politicos for safe-keeping was missing.

The series of raids, about which Chadha seems to have had prior knowledge, covered some 17 locations but yielded a mere Rs 11.61 crore, peanuts, by `Ponty’s’standards.

The last nickname name came from his reputation of being an season financier of politicians – big and small, cutting across party-lines.

His proximity with Mayawati had seen him win the liquor vends contracts, a deal to buy up 5 state-run sugar mills in U.P for a tenth of their real value. and a Rs 9,000 crore contract to supply pre-packaged meals to anagnwadis, in contravention of Supreme Court orders to get self-help groups to cook hot meals under the scheme. He also won the contract to set up a Rs 10,000 crore, mega 40 million square feet real estate including houses, hotels and malls in Noida for his firm wave infratech. The first phase of the controversial project which has been challenged in the supreme court by farmers whose land was taken away and given for the project, is expected to be finished by 2016.

When Mulayam Singh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party came to power, many expected his empire to start crumbling. It didn’t, the multi-crore anaganwadi meal programme was renewed, the liquor vends deal continues.

His proximity to politicians was said to come from his habit of giving out large donations towards election expenses. Some allege he had his wallets out in elections not only in the UP but also Punjab, Haryana and Uttarakhand.

His son `Monty’ Chadha, who is expected to take over his business empire along with his middle brother, is also supposed to be the brain behind setting up a chain of nightclubs, where many of UP’s political scions were often caught shaking a leg, and his group’s involvement in Bollywood, initially as a distributer and later as a multi-plex owner and movie financier. Kahani, khakee, Gadar, No Entry and Ready were among movies he distributed. He entered film production in 2005 by making the Sunny Deol starrer-Jo Bole So Nihal.

In the end, his story ended in a manner which begs a Bollywood storyline. What marketmen and investors will now be watching will be whether his empire ends in the same way or continues as a legacy to man who clawed his way up the tough and often murky world of North Indian business.