Patron Saint

This week Chandraswami finally found some divine light. He was acquitted in the 14-year-old St Kitts case because of lack of evidence. He and his associate K N Aggarwal, alias mamaji, who died this year, faced trial for allegedly forging certain documents to show that former prime minister V P Singh8217;s son Ajeya Singh had opened a bank account in St Kitts island in 1986 and had deposited millions in it.

BUT the tantrik8217;s best days were in the Eighties. Chandraswami, son of a money lender from Bahrod in Rajasthan, left home to become a disciple of Upadhyay Amar Muni and tantra pandit Gopinath Kaviraj. After that he is said to have lived in the jungles of Bihar for four years.

The godman-kingmaker shifted with equal ease from social circles to political coeteries to the arms dealers network. The Sultan of Brunei, arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, Bahrain ruler Sheikh Isha Kaleefa and actress Elizabeth Taylor were just a few of the people who sought his blessings.

But it was his proximity to former prime minister Narasimha Rao that spurred his rise. Not surprising then that the first people to congratulate him on his acquittal were Rao and Chandrashekhar8212;the men who are said to have aided his transformation from sanyasi to kingmaker.

NOW, after almost nine years in the wilderness, Chandraswami is ready to leave the 8216;8216;darkness8217;8217; behind him. 8216;8216;I haven8217;t run away from politics and neither will I run. There is a definite relation between the body and the soul. Just like the soul needs a body, politics needs religion,8217;8217; he says.

Sitting on a throne-like chair in his palatial four-storey Delhi ashram, Chandraswami flaunts his connections: 8216;8216;I have even enjoyed good ties with Vajpayee. Ask him.8217;8217;

The telephone in his room hasn8217;t stopped ringing since Monday. He receives his guests in his bedroom, accompanied by his confidante Vikram Singh.

8216;8216;From Indira Gandhi8217;s days8230;there is not a single politician who hasn8217;t come close to me,8217;8217; he says. But apart from a handful, the others are yet to show support for him publicly. Adds Vikram Singh: 8216;8216;He will be more visible now. He wasted a lot of negative energy fighting cases. But not anymore.8217;8217;

But there are still ten FERA cases against him relating to unauthorised acquisition of foreign wealth. While one case is in the last stages on final arguments, the others are still in a pre-charge stage. 8216;8216;There are 10 complaints pending in the ACMM court at Patiala House,8217;8217; says R N Das, director, Enforcement Directorate.

Chandraswami, meanwhile, dismisses them: 8216;8216;Fera is a phera.8217;8217; Unperturbed by them, he8217;s now planning a trip abroad to spread his 8216;message8217;. After that, a proposal to build a university devoted to the occult sciences.