Saxena had taken on Patkar, Setalvad in court in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: Delhi’s new LG,

Vinai Kumar Saxena

(64) is known to be a man who never shies away from putting up a fight, in most cases a legal one. An ardent supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Saxena had a very fulfilling stint as chairman of

Khadi and Village Industries Commission

(KVIC). His out-of-the-box thinking by virtue of being from the corporate world helped

KVIC

script a success story.

Saxena is known in Gujarat for having fought prolonged legal battles with Narmada Bachao Andolan’s Medha Patkar and Mumbai-based human rights activist Teesta Setalvad. His Ahmedabad-based NGO — National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) — picked up the gauntlet on behalf of the Gujarat government in various courts.

At the head of the government in Delhi now, bureaucracy watchers say, Saxena is expected to team up well with police commissioner Rakesh Asthana as the two share a good rapport from their days in Gujarat.

The legal battles of Saxena against Patkar’s NGO were instrumental in paving the way for clearing of various legal hurdles in the way of the Sardar Sarovar Project. In the process, though, he got embroiled in several cases. His NGO even dragged Setalvad’s trusts to court for alleged irregularities in foreign funding. This at a time when the human rights activist was forcefully championing the cause of the 2002 communal riot victims in various courts.

Saxena and his NGO have remained arch enemies of Patkar, who during a TV interview accused Saxena of benefiting from government projects. Saxena sued her for defamation in a metropolitan court in Ahmedabad. Patkar, too, filed a defamation case against him. Both cases were shifted to a Delhi court, said Saxena’s advocate, Ajay Choksi.

His long legal battles drew him close to Modi, who was then the CM in Gujarat. Over the years, he has grown close to Union home minister Amit Shah too.

After Saxena was appointed as the chairman of KVIC in 2015, the government body witnessed a huge growth. KVIC registered an unparalleled turnover of Rs 1.15 lakh crore in 2021-22.