How relations strained after Amit Jethwa started probing Dinu Solanki’s businesses

Dinu, who is third among eight children (he has three brothers and four sisters) earned a degree in arts before taking up business. “He benefited immensely from a cement factory set up by Gujarat High Tech Cements and subsequently by Ambuja Cements in the 1980s,” a local journalist says. “As he became a known face, one Vanravan Anandji, an influential businessman of Kodinar introduced him into the political circles of Kodinar. Solanki got contracts from this factory, which boosted his career as a businessman.

There was a commotion outside the court after former BJP MP Dinu Solanki was sentenced to life imprisonment in Ahmedabad on Thursday. (Express photo: Javed Raja)

Solanki became a supporter of Dhirsinh Barad, Congress MLA from Kodinar in the early 1990s. Then he switched allegiance and went on to play an important role in the victory of Laxman Parmar of the BJP from Kodinar in the 1995 Assembly election. “There is little like party allegiance when it comes to Solanki. He worked for the victory of all those who helped him and his business grow,” a BJP insider says.

A young Solanki, however, found an unexpected opening after Parmar sided with Shankersinh Vaghela who rebelled against the then BJP government led by Keshubhai Patel in late 1995. After the Rashtriya Janata Party of Vaghela lost majority, fresh Assembly elections were conducted in 1998 and the BJP gave a ticket to Solanki to contest from Kodinar. Solanki made an impressive debut, defeating Pravin Zala of the Congress.

After becoming an MLA of the ruling party, Solanki’s sphere of influence expanded. He also served as chairman of Bileshwar Khand Udyog Sahakari Mandali Limited, a sugar cooperative of Kodinar in 1999-2000. He retained his Kodinar Assembly seat in 2002, this time defeating his once-mentor Parmar – who had by then joined the Congress – by a narrow margin of around 2,000 votes. Solanki was now heading a buoyant business empire under the banner of Rajmoti, with interests in mining of bauxite, sand, black trap as well as in transport and fuel retailing. He completed a hat-trick of victories from Kodinar by defeating Parmar one more time in the 2007 Assembly election.

In the meantime, Bhavna Chikhaliya, sitting BJP MP from Junagadh, had lost the 2004 Lok Sabha election and fallen out of favour with Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, and the BJP bosses. So, the party nominated Solanki, who hails from Karadiya Rajput community (OBC), as its candidate for the Junagadh Parliamentary constituency in the 2009 Lok Sabha election. He defeated sitting Congress MP Jashubhai Barad by more than 13,000 votes. By this time, he had grown very close to Amit Shah, then junior home minister of Gujarat.

However, soon after his victory in the Lok Sabha election, Solanki suffered a jolt. Congress’ Dhirsinh Barad snatched back Kodinar in the bypoll held to the Assembly seat in 2009 after it was vacated by Solanki. Dhirsinh defeated BJP’s Natwarsinh Vala, a close relative of Solanki. Vala’s daughter is married to Solanki’s elder son Dashrathsinh.

While Solanki was at the peak of his political power, Jethwa had already started making life difficult for the politician. Jethwa’s father Bhikhu Batwala is a native of Harmadiya, a village in Kodinar taluka of Gir Somnath where Solanki also has agricultural land (he and his family members had more than 60 hectare of agricultural land) and where he built a sprawling farmhouse on the border of the Gir forest. During his trips to Gandhinagar, Jethwa even used to stay in the MLA quarters allotted to Solanki there. But the two apparently fell out after Jethwa, who had by then had settled in Khambha village in Amreli district, contested the 2007 Assembly election to the Kodinar seat against Solanki as an independent candidate.

Through his RTI activism, Jethwa forced Solanki’s Rajmoti Charitable Trust to give up possession of a community hall in Kodinar on the grounds that it was built using government funds. Through RTI applications and public interest litigations, Jethwa also was instrumental in getting some of mining leases in the periphery of the Gir forest cancelled. In between, Congress’ Dhirsinh Barad also claimed he was facing threats from Solanki and had demanded police protection in 2012.

After he was arrested in 2013 for Jethwa’s murder, the political fortunes of Solanki started dipping. The BJP denied him the party ticket to seek re-election as Junagadh MP in 2014 and instead chose Rajesh Chudasama, a member of the Koli community, which dominates the Parliamentary constituency.

Solanki also fell out with Jethabhai Solanki, a Dalit who was once among his trusted men and who was elected MLA from Kodinar as a BJP candidate in 2012. In the 2017 Assembly election, Mohan Vala of Congress defeated Ram Vadher of the BJPin Kodinar, marking the first defeat of the BJP from the seat in a general election in 20 years.

Even as the legal battle in the Jethwa case was on, Solanki made one final push for the revival of his political career in the Lok Sabha poll earlier this year. However, the party kept him at arm’s length this time too, and Chudasama’s candidature was confirmed by the BJP days after he went to Solanki’s residence in Kodinar and the duo posed for photos. Meanwhile, the sugar cooperative that Solanki’s family and relatives used to control and which was the last such organisation in Saurashtra, shut operations three years ago.