Gurugram: In 2011, Ashok Tanwar, then Congress MP from Sirsa, had stormed out of a rally organised by Gopal Kanda, furious after discovering that his name had been omitted from the plaque of a project being launched by then Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. Fast forward 13 years, and Tanwar, now the BJP’s candidate from Sirsa, was recently seen embracing both Gopal Kanda and his brother Gobind earlier this month.
Gopal Kanda — chief of the Haryana Lokhit Party (HLP) and a two-time MLA from Sirsa — holds significant sway in the upcoming elections. His influence is pivotal for the BJP, due to their strong support among the non-Jat population and the Agarwal community, particularly in Sirsa and its neighboring areas.
He served as the minister of state for home in Haryana but resigned in 2012 following allegations related to the abetment to suicide of a former air hostess, Geetika Sharma. He, however, remains an important figure for political parties and their leaders in Haryana. He was considered close to former INLD chief minister Om Prakash Chautala and Congress CM Hooda, and now to BJP’s ex-CM Khattar and current CM Saini.
Kanda was acquitted of the charges in the Geetika Sharma case in July 2023 by Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court.
The Tanwar-Kanda reunion took place during an event at Gopal Kanda’s office in Sirsa’s Hisaria Bazar on 14 April.
“Kehte hain, samay jab kharab hota hai, oonth pe baithe ko bhi kutta kaat jaata hai (it is said that when times are bad, one can be bitten by a dog even when sitting atop a camel),” said Tanwar, explaining what happened 13 years ago. Following his walk out, the Kandas were publicly admonished by Hooda for leaving the MP’s name out.
“Just like Modi ka pariwaar, Kanda ka pariwaar, too, works for the betterment of the country. I never had any malice towards the Kanda brothers nor did I say anything against them. People will always see Ashok Tanwar standing behind the Kanda brothers…. Ex-CM Manohar Lal Khattar and CM Nayab Singh Saini have made possible my meeting with the Kanda brothers,” Tanwar said, addressing supporters of Gopal Kanda in Sirsa, according to the press note issued by Tanwar’s team.
Speaking to ThePrint, Tanwar said that his association with the Kandas was 15 years old since both he and Gopal had won their first election in 2009 — Tanwar from Sirsa Lok Sabha seat and Gopal from Sirsa Vidhan Sabha seat.
“Gopal Kanda’s HLP is already a part of the NDA. Kanda’s father Murli Dhar Kanda was also in the BJP. Following former CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Kandas have announced their support for me and I am grateful for that. Once again, we will work together for the betterment of Sirsa and play our part in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s target of winning 400 seats for the NDA,” said Tanwar.
According to political commentator Yoginder Gupta, Gopal Kanda is important for the BJP in these elections because of his political clout among non-Jats and Agarwals.
“Gopal Kanda started his politics with the Chautalas in around 2000 and remained with them till they were in power in the state till 2005. However, the Chautalas never considered him for a ticket in an election. Once they were voted out of power, Kanda started moving away from them till he fully denounced them publicly in 2009,” said Gupta.
“Kanda then successfully contested as an Independent in the 2009 Haryana assembly polls and supported the Congress government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda. He became a minister. However, he had to resign in 2012, following the registration of an FIR against him in the Geetika Sharma suicide case. He subsequently set up the HLP and contested the 2014 and 2019 elections from his party,” Gupta said, adding that immediately after winning the 2019 assembly poll, Gopal Kanda offered support to the BJP.
ThePrint reached Gopal Kanda via phone call. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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Kanda’s popularity on the ground
Gopal Kanda has served as a two-time MLA from the Sirsa Assembly seat, winning initially as an Independent in 2009 and later as a candidate from his Haryana Lokhit Party in 2019. In the 2014 election, he contested the seat under the HLP banner but narrowly lost to the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) candidate, Makhan Lal Singla.
His younger brother, Gobind Kanda, has contested elections three times — in 2014 and 2019 for the Rania assembly seat as an HLP candidate, and in a 2021 by-election for the Ellenabad assembly seat as a BJP nominee. However, he has yet to secure a victory.
Not just a politician, Gopal Kanda also runs a private religious estate by the name of ‘Tara Baba Kutiya’. Named after his late spiritual Guru and spread over more than 20 acres of land on the outskirts of Sirsa town, it attracts thousands of devotees daily and is managed by a family trust that has Gopal Kanda, his brother Gobind, their mother Saraswati Devi and several others from his family as its members.
Gopal also has a palatial house within a 4.5 acre compound, which also has a helipad within, a school, a hospital and a restaurant adjoining the Tara Baba Kutiya.
The hospital offers free eye surgery camps, free spectacles and medicines.
The family also distributes gifts among the poor during major events like Maha Shivratri, and even Gopal Kanda’s birthdays.
“The most important thing different political parties find in Kanda is that he comes with a captive vote bank of the followers of his Tara Baba Kutiya. Being a rich businessman, Kanda is always an asset for political parties,” said political analyst Pawan Kumar Bansal.
Bansal further said that Kanda has been a little lucky too, since both times he was elected MLA (2009 and 2019), the parties in power didn’t win a majority on their own and needed support of independents like Kanda.
“When he was elected in 2009, Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s Congress could get 40 seats and the independents like Kanda were welcome in his government. He was made a minister and given the home portfolio. In 2019 again, when Kanda won, (BJP’s) Manohar Lal Khattar got 40 seats and Kanda offered his support,” said Bansal.
“However, before Khattar could accept his support, former MP CM Uma Bharti posted a series of tweets opposing BJP’s efforts to seek Kanda’s support. It was only after this that the BJP decided to ally with the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP). However, now that the JJP is no longer in alliance with them, Kanda is again close to the BJP,” said Bansal.
He said had Kanda won in 2014, when the BJP had won 47 seats, the political party in power wouldn’t have had any interest in him.
Jasbir Singh Jassa, a senior INLD leader from Sirsa and a member of the party’s national executive, however, said that Kanda is not as popular even in his Sirsa as he is often projected to be.
“If you look at the percentage of votes he received, it will come out less than 25 percent of total votes and less than one-third of the total votes polled. It’s more about his money power and some committed voters because of his Tara Baba Kutiya that political parties are interested in him,” said Jassa.
Hey, the Gopal Kanda story is in the CMS. There are two Paras in bold. Can you please just replace all of that with these two lines?
According to Election Commission of India data, Kanda polled 44,915 votes in 2019 — 31.65 percent vote share.
Similarly, in 2009, he had polled 39,147 votes — 32.94 percent vote share.
According to Jassa, the biggest advantage for Kanda was that he won both his elections when the ruling parties didn’t get a simple majority.
“It has always been observed that whenever the elections for the state assembly are held in the absence of a wave, more Independents get a chance to win because the votes are almost evenly divided between two major political parties and strong Independents who manage slightly better vote share emerge winners,” said Jassa.
His business successes
A close associate of the Kanda family, speaking to ThePrint on the condition of anonymity, said that the Kandas were initially businessmen, running a shoe showroom in Sirsa town until the 1990s, when, on the advice of their spiritual guru Tara Baba, Gopal Kanda relocated to Gurugram.
Around 1999, during Om Prakash Chautala’s tenure as CM, Kanda ventured into real estate and prospered with the state government’s assistance. Since then, his business portfolio has expanded significantly, encompassing real estate, hotels, casinos, educational institutions, and media, including ownership of the Haryana TV channel, said the associate. Additionally, he launched MDLR Airlines, which ceased operations later on.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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