Many industrialists hated me: R P Goenka

KOLKATA: At 79, R P Goenka now largely leads the life of a retired patriarch doing the things he didn���t have much time for when he was laying the foundation for the growth of RPG Enterprises ��� a less than $100 million entity at the time of the partition of the family business in the late 1970s ��� to its current size of nearly $3 billion through a spate of audacious takeovers, leading him to be dubbed the ���takeover tycoon���.Reading, for instance, currently takes up a lot of his time.
But the soft-spoken chairman emeritus of the RPG Group ��� who hardly ever speaks on business these days despite continuing to chair the boards of two flagship companies (Ceat and CESC) ��� does not mince his words, though, when he is in the mood for some public soul-searching, something TOI was lucky to be witness to during a free-wheeling discussion with the tycoon at his Kolkata residence late last week.
���Many industrialists hated me,��� Goenka said, as the conversation inevitably veered around to how his proximity to former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was viewed by others of his ilk. ���I was among four people arrested in Nainital on October 3, 1977. The Janata government (of Morarji Desai) raided my offices and home 45 times. But I admired Indira Gandhi, whom I consider the best Prime Minister India ever had, and I paid the price for that closeness with a smile.���
Goenka ��� who pointed out that politics always interested him ��� though, declined to indicate, far less drop hints, on whether some of those industrialists with whom his relations were frosty are still active today. However, he was more forthcoming while speaking about Reliance Group founder Dhirubhai Ambani, with whom he got along famously.
���Dhirubhai was an outstanding individual. As a businessman, he was fantastic. He had an entrepreneurial spirit and a vision which not too many possessed. We liked each other very much and would often meet at the health club of the Oberoi in Mumbai,��� Goenka said, while not elaborating on what had brought them together.
However, Goenka ��� who once famously told another former PM Rajiv Gandhi that his government had started a ���raid-raj��� ��� explained that business barons are far less likely to become victims of political vendetta today. ���Has the UPA harassed any BJP man? Vendetta politics will not happen with a Congress government,��� he asserted.
As the discussion shifted towards his achievements and whether he still felt that RPG, as a group, could have grown faster under his leadership, Goenka admitted that he had had his share of ���follies���. ���Taking over Ceat was definitely the biggest achievement as it catapulted us to another level. CESC was also big, but it came much later when we were already of a certain size,��� he said.
���As for the deals which didn���t work out, I don���t want to speak much on Bombay Dyeing as Wadia sahab (Nusli Wadia) doesn���t like it. But it will always rank as one of my failures. I don���t want to comment on what I would have done if the same thing had happened today,��� he added. Goenka had a signed deal with Wadia���s father Neville ��� ���the agreement is still there with solicitor firm Mulla and Mulla��� ��� for buying out Bombay Dyeing. But Goenka declined to give effect to the contract when Neville later requested him not to go ahead with the deal.