“Devil Wears ‘Khaadi’ (The Unmasking of Romesh Sharma)” continues…

The Airport Authority of India records also revealed the address of Suresh Rao in Mumbai and his telephone number. Chhatwal flew to Mumbai and called H. Suresh Rao to our STF office located close to the Sachivalaya (Secretariat) of the Maharashtra government. Suresh, to begin with, was most apprehensive when Chhatwal began to question him about his helicopter. He thought it was Romesh Sharma’s latest ploy to use the CBI to get at him. But when he realized that the CBI officer had come to listen to his travails at the hands of his tormentor, he broke down. It was the first time any government agency was ready to give him a patient hearing. He had the following story to narrate:

His company Pushpak Aviation Private Limited was in the business of renting out helicopters. One of his helicopters was hired for campaigning by Romesh Sharma, a politico, who was contesting the parliamentary elections in 1996 from the Phulpur constituency of Uttar Pradesh. He told Rao that he couldn’t possibly disclose to the authorities that he had hired the helicopter and incurred the heavy expenditure involved, on account of the restrictions on campaign expenses imposed by the Election Commission of India. He cleverly urged Rao to prepare documents to show as if the aircraft had been sold to him much before the elections. Sharma assured Suresh Rao that the sale documents would be destroyed soon after the elections are over and the helicopter returned to him. Rao thought he was poised to make a killing as the assured hiring of the helicopter for the duration of the elections was going to fetch him a neat sum of money. Driven by avarice and taken in by Sharma’s sweet talk, Rao prepared the sale documents and executed a predated Memorandum of Understanding as if he had sold the helicopter for Rupees 40,000 to Sharma on February 24, 1996.

On March 26 the same year, the helicopter was sent to Phulpur where it was sent to Phulpur where it was used for electioneering by Sharma.

To be continued…