Before Modi, he fought mafia

The Congress has made much of this, calling Pandya’s killing ‘‘political murder’’ and implying a connection. But his family members say neither Pandya nor they had perceived any threat to his life.

In fact, the amiable Pandya had been moving about freely without guards for the last few months, mingling with people of his former constituency, many of whom he knew by first name, and joking that he was finding time for golf.

The constituency had seen him to the Assembly three times — in 1992, 1995, and 1998. Each time, he won with bigger margins, and in 1998 polled 78 per cent of the vote.

Besides being popular, he was seen as clean, moderate, and upright — an image nurtured since his days as a student leader at the L.D. Engineering College. Even as minister, he lived in his own house in Ahmedabad, making do only with the service of an official driver.

Pandya was close to former chief minister Keshubhai Patel, who had made him minister of state for home. And before they quarelled, Modi, too, had given him the important revenue portfolio, recognising him as an efficent, no-nonsense worker.

For as home minister, Pandya had taken on organised crime, breaking down many gangs in Porbander and other cities. He had also taken on gangsters controlling cable TV networks, taking on a brother of deputy minister Purshottam Solanki without hesitation.

As revenue minister, Pandya cracked down in a big way on the land mafia, making many enemies by ordering inquiries into the land deals of several influential people.

Pandya’s political downslide, however, began when he refused to vacate the Ellis Bridge seat for Modi’s by-election. Modi eventually contested from Rajkot-2 and won, but took Pandya’s refusal to vacate the seat as an insult. Pandya, too, spoke out openly against Modi’s autocratic ways.

The friends who had once attended RSS shakhas together no longer got along well. Things worsened when Modi started objecting to Pandya’s presence at party meetings and, in one instance, even walked out of a meeting in Gandhinagar at which Pandya was present. Pandya paid Modi back by not inviting him to an Ellis Bridge BJYM function, to which BJP state president Rajendrasinh Rana and party treasurer Surendra Patel were invited.

The BJP then slapped him with a show-cause notice in July 2002 for allegedly testifying before a group of former judges who had come to unofficially record findings about the post-Godhra riots.

Although the NGO which sent the group had not mentioned Pandya’s name, sections of the media hinted that it was him.

Instead of replying to the party, Pandya made the notice public, and denied the allegations at a press conference. When he was asked to explain this defiance, he submitted resignation as a minister.

When the December 2002 elections were declared, Modi ensured that Pandya was denied ticket. Frustrated, Pandya opted out of the race and his protege Bhavin Sheth contested from the seat and won.

Of Pandya’s recent political exile, Sheth said, ‘‘It seemed he was enjoying a vacation. He would go to play golf, take long walks in the morning and evening, and generally spend time with the family.’’

On his death the BJP, however, made it out as if that exile was soon to be over: top central leaders said that only last week he had been told he was to be appointed to the party’s national executive council.