Richest MP on a different plane altogether

P.V. Abdul Wahab is no stranger to controversies and knows how to tackle them when he gets into one.

P.V. Abdul Wahab is no stranger to controversies and knows how to tackle them when he gets into one. So now, the NRI businessman and Muslim League MP, who was ordered out of a Dubai-bound Indian flight at Kozhikode two days ago after he allegedly held up the aircraft, has vowed to haul the pilot to the privileges committee of Parliament.

Fifty six-year-old Wahab is one of the country8217;s wealthiest MPs. Going by the affidavit he submitted to the Election Commission before his nomination to the Rajya Sabha in 2004, Wahab owns a Rs 136-crore business network that stretches all the way from Kerala to the Gulf countries, to even Australia.

Wahab, who hailed from a poor Nilambur family, began his career in Dubai in 1974 as a storekeeper8217;s assistant, before turning into a small-time local trader of auto spare parts and garage equipment. Some 25 years later, Wahab now presides over the Bridgeway group, a multi-crore business network with a big presence in almost all major Gulf cities. Wahab8217;s international businesses run the whole gamut from shipping and freight forwarding to oil drilling equipment, global trading, real estate and civil construction, health care and education.

His Indian business empire, the Peevees Group8212;named after his initials8212;is into automobile dealerships, real estate and property development, textile and garment manufacturing, education and more. He was also on the board of the public sector Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd and Travancore Cements Limited, besides the Malabar Institute of Medical Sciences, one of Kerala8217;s largest multi-speciality corporate hospitals.

A huge din had followed when the Muslim League ignored its own aspirants to announce him as its Rajya Sabha nominee in 2004. Wahab had been carefully nurturing his relationship with the League leaders for many years. Most protests were not because he was to be the first full-time businessman in Kerala to be nominated to the Rajya Sabha. The objections were about including Wahab, an NRI, in the local voters8217; list of his native Nilambur so that he could get his Rajya Sabha nomination through in an alleged violation of the Representation of People8217;s Act.

One of his biggest critics has been Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan who had criticised his partymen for attending a pre-poll felicitation for Wahab. Other Left constituents, like the RSP, were vocal in condemning what they alleged was his backdoor entry to Parliament. The DYFI, the CPM8217;s youth outfit, was the most vocal of the protesters, alleging that the NRI had used his money to bag the nomination, while a CPM man moved court against the nomination.

But through all this, Wahab remained unfazed. If VS was hounding him, he was quick to secure the tacit but obvious backing of VS8217;s arch rival in the CPM, state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. Wahab even took up the directorship of Kairali TV, the TV channel that Vijayan personally promoted from the sidelines for the party. Wahab also got on the board of the League mouthpiece Chandrika.

Story continues below this ad

Wahab reportedly plays the ubiquitous host to almost all Kerala political leaders on their regular Gulf jaunts, and few Kerala politicians would perhaps honestly claim the kind of clout that this one time assistant to a store keeper now has8212; across all political outfits.