CHANDIGARH: The Congress) member of Indian parliament, Satpal Mittal, who, according to Bombay broker Harshad Mehta took him to prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s official residence for delivery of Rs l crore bribe, belonged to Ludhiana, Punjab. Mittal later died a natural death. He left a vast wealth for his family, One company which Mittal left has an equity of Rs 4.75 crore with reserves of Rs 20 crore. Mittals have 30% share in this company alone. In other words, the family has a stake at its par value of Rs 7.42 crore. There are other companiés and properties held by the family whose value Cannot be ascerlained but many ¢ritics believe it to be many times more than the family’s share in the Bharti Telecom. Interestingly, Mittal belonged to an extremely poor family. His fatherhada small house in a dirty area of the town and! had an equally small shop selling paan and cigarettes, According to an old associate of Mittal, the latter used to beg fora paan from friends, But his fortunate changed with his joining the All India Youth Congress, a wing of the present ruling party. He pushed his way through in politics and became a nominated member of the Punjab legislative council. He served for about six months deputy minister incharge of home departmentin the ministry headed by Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir. ‘With resources and contacts at his disposal, Mittal was later nominated thrice to the upper house of the Indian parliament. He was very close to the Nehru dynasty. Rucinocomon looking for an approach to the powers that be in Delhi always got in touch with Mital. His was trily:a story of rags to riches although his son, Rajan Mittal, in an interview recently claimed that the father was not helpful to their company and was actually a liability for them. “If my father had a clout with the government authorities, our company’s share in the telecommunication department’s purchases would not have been mere 10%.” Replying to criticism that Bharti Telecom was awarded cellular telephone licence on the Strength of Mittal’s contacts, Rajan Mittal said that the contract had been awarded on merit. “The U.S. company, Premium Telecom, one of the fortune 500 companies, selected us as partners after rejecting several big names, I am sure my father did notspeak to Ronald Reagan to clinch the tieup.” Both Rajan and Sunil Mittal have denied Mehta’s charge that he had met the Indian prime minister along with Satpal Mittal and his son, Sunil. Rajan Mittal also Claimed that his family did not have close relations with Harshad Mehta. It was, however, revealed that the Mittal family’s relations with Mehta were close and the Bharti Telecom management alJotted 56700 rights shares of Bharti Telecom on June 14,1991, out of the rights issue from the quota of directors’ relations and frends.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 25, 1993
