Amidst news that Vijay Mallya had refused to come back to India claiming that “time was not right” for him to return, Twitterverse was abuzz with speculations over what makes Mallya so well connected, enabling him to almost act with impunity.
While Mallya’s closeness with the political class is well known with him having friends in almost all political parties, many people on Twitter discovered yet another link of Mallya that makes the Bangalore based business tycoon “well connected”.
And this time the connection goes to the “civil society” and the journalists – who are supposed to be the “conscience keepers” of the society.
Mallya was found to be connected with Amnesty India’s Aakar Patel – who is also well known for writing casteist and anti-Modi articles, and thus is a celebrated writer among the “liberal” journalists – by virtue of Aakar Patel’s wife being Mallya’s political secretary.
Interestingly, the woman in question – Tushita Aakar Patel – has not explicitly mentioned that she was a secretary to Mallya. Instead, her twitter bio reads “personal assistant to a big businessman”. She is however followed by many journalists on Twitter with whom she regularly interacts.
Intrigued by this lack of disclosure, many Twitter users decided to dig further and they found the following pieces of information that once again confirm how well connected is the “ecosystem”:
And yes, Tushita Patel is wife of Aakar Patel, here is a Mid Day article confirming it. https://t.co/nAFok8YpPT pic.twitter.com/hlfJPypxzA
— Raju Das | ৰাজু দাস (@rajudasonline) March 13, 2016
.@bwoyblunder If you’re talking about a lady named Tushita Patel,she’s not just a PA,UB site list her as Non-Exe Dir pic.twitter.com/hkhkMOgjrs
— Revolutionary Monk (@RevolutionMonk) March 13, 2016
Having someone as a personal or political secretary is not a crime, but what Twitter users found is that Aakar Patel was economical with disclosures when he wrote about Vijay Mallya e.g.
My eyes are still hurting, what with all that overflowing adulation. Aakar Patel has surpassed himself. Some quotes: pic.twitter.com/Oo1mSBmY4C
— Anand Ranganathan (@ARangarajan1972) March 13, 2016
2012
Feb: Mallya refuses personal guarantee
Sep: 7000 cr debt restructuring begins
Oct: DGCA suspends Kingfisher
Dec: Aakar writes his piece— Anand Ranganathan (@ARangarajan1972) March 13, 2016
Aakar Patel in @livemint pc refers to being on @TheVijayMallya yacht with zero disclosure his wife works for Mallya https://t.co/zkpU3W0bS1
— Rupa Subramanya (@rupasubramanya) March 13, 2016
and a riddle 🙂
Heard NGO Amnesty is worried about Mallya
— J Gopikrishnan (@jgopikrishnan70) March 13, 2016
