AAP’s Sushil Gupta heads trusts, owns farmland, family assets worth Rs 170 crore
Sushil Gupta said that after he contested the 2013 elections on a Congress ticket from Moti Nagar and lost, he was "approached by AAP".
AAP leader Sushil Gupta.
In 2016-17, AAP Rajya Sabha nominee Sushil Gupta and his wife showed an income of Rs 13.73 lakh. Their total assets stood at Rs 170.29 crore, of which Rs 108.74 crore is largely in the form of agricultural land he has bought over the years. He is also the founder chairman of seven educational trusts, which run 15 educational institutes, of which four are in the capital.
Gupta has moveable assets — including a tractor, an Audi car and a Hyundai Santro — worth Rs 48.47 crore, while his wife has moveable assets worth Rs 13.08 crore, his Rajya Sabha affidavit states. Apart from this, the Rajya Sabha nominee owns land worth Rs 20.67 crore and his wife owns land worth Rs 88.07 crore. As per his affdavit, the purchase price of the land bought by them was Rs 76.34 crore.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Gupta said, “Today, food on our table at home continues to come through agriculture. My father was a farmer and like him, that is who I am.”
He added that their family had ancestral land in Haryana, which they sold while moving to Delhi’s Punjabi Bagh. “It was in the late 80s, when I got involved in social work and formed the first trust, which would become the basis of different schools we have today.” They also have agricultural land across Delhi, mostly concentrated in villages in west Delhi, and Haryana. Apart from this, he has purchased over 12 acres of land in 2016 at Rs 12.9 crore.
Of the 15 educational institutes, Ganga International School, spread over 15 acres in west Delhi’s Hiran Kudna is one of the largest. It also has branches at Sawda and Rohini in the capital, while the other 12 are in Haryana. The fee at the school is Rs 1.29 lakh per annum for day scholars and goes up to Rs 2.5 lakh for hostel students, as per the school website.
“It was through one of these schools that I first met Arvind Kejriwal in 2010. One of the schools was putting together a book by students on success stories, and they featured him. Later in 2013, Kejriwal was the chief guest at a function in Delhi, which I was hosting.”
Gupta said that after he contested the 2013 elections on a Congress ticket from Moti Nagar and lost, he was “approached by AAP”. “They approached me in 2013. But I wanted to see their work first and also I have always believed in the Congress ideology. By 2015, I was quite impressed and when the Congress asked me to contest polls, I declined,” he claimed. Party sources maintained that it was Gupta who suggested the name of Shiv Charan Goel, who eventually won the seat for the AAP.
In his 2013 election affidavit, Gupta, in his educational qualifications, had listed a PhD and an MBA, which he hasn’t listed in his latest affidavit. He explained, “My advocate suggested that I list only those educational qualifications which have been received from public institutions. Private institutions can be susceptible to pressure from the Centre. It is a crime to add an educational qualification, but not to subtract them.”
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