Newsmaker | Gopal Goyal Kanda: The nine lives of a suicide case accused

Speaking to The Indian Express, Haryana BJP chief spokesperson Sanjay Sharma said Tuesday, “Gopal Kanda is already a part of the BJP-led NDA government in Haryana… He was invited to the recent NDA meeting too and he sent his brother Govind Kanda.”

On the case against Kanda, Sharma said: “The law has taken its own course and we believe in following the law.”
Geetika Shama used to be an airhostess in the MDLR Airlines founded by Kanda. She had quit her job when she died by suicide at her Northwest Delhi residence in August 2012. In her two-page suicide note, she alleged she was being “harassed” by Kanda and his employee Aruna Chadha.

Kanda, the Sirsa MLA and the Minister of State, Home, in the Congress’s Haryana government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda at the time, and Chadha were arrested on charges of abetment of suicide, forgery, criminal intimidation, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.

In February 2013, Sharma’s mother too committed suicide, leaving behind a note accusing Kanda of putting “pressure” on the family.

In its chargesheet, the Delhi Police said Kanda was “obsessed” with Sharma. In March 2014, the Delhi High Court dropped the sexual exploitation charges added against Kanda, leading to Chadha and he being released on bail.

Not long after, Kanda floated his own party. In 2019, after he won from the Sirsa Assembly seat, he was among the MLAs flown personally by local BJP MP Sunita Duggal to New Delhi to meet senior leaders on a chartered flight. Kanda was more than happy to back the BJP, but the party backed off on account of the backlash over the suicide case against him.

Kanda, however, continued to proclaim support for the BJP. In 2021, ahead of the Ellenabad bypoll in Haryana’s Sirsa district, his brother Govind – who lost in 2019 from Rania – joined the BJP and was fielded against the INLD’s Abhay Chautala. While Govind lost, he was among the key organisers of Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s rally in Sirsa last month.

The prestige and subsequent notoriety attached to Kanda would have once been unimaginable for a man who till the 1990s ran a small shop repairing radio handsets called Jupiter Music Home. Kanda’s father was a well-known advocate of Sirsa, and an RSS worker, who contested an election from Sirsa in 1952, and lost.

From their radio repair shop, Kanda and Govind got into the shoe business and opened a shoe store in Sirsa. Soon, Kanda had found friends among traders, businessmen and politicians, and started a shoe factory.

In 2007, came the stunning news that Kanda had moved on to running an airline, which he named after his father Murli Dhar Lakh Ram (MDLR). Geetika Sharma worked at this airline, which folded up within two years.

While his father had RSS links, Kanda’s first political port of call was the Bansi Lal family of the Congress. After Bansi Lal lost power, he switched sides to the Chautalas and the INLD. Soon, the Kanda brothers had emerged as close aides of the Chautala kin.

The relationship strained after the INLD denied Kanda a ticket from Sirsa. Kanda fought as an Independent in 2009, and won. When the Assembly results threw up a hung House, Kanda was one of the MLAs the Congress led by Hooda turned to. This is what led a grateful Hooda rewarding Kanda with the MoS, Home, position.

Gradually, Kanda shifted base to Gurgaon and got into real-estate. Currently, his Golden Globe Hotels Pvt Ltd firm is into the casino business in Goa.

The Kandas continue to wield considerable clout in Sirsa, on account of their wealth as well as for their charitable programmes, earning them a following among the poor and backward classes.

The Geetika Sharma case isn’t the only one against Kanda. He is also facing trial under the Negotiable Instruments Act. In October 2016, the Kanda brothers faced charges of illegally developing a property in Sirsa.

With inputs by Sukhbir Siwach