Alleged Srinivasan friend Neeraj Gunde, prefers to be called an activist
Gunde admits he knows Srinivasan personally but denies being an advisor to his legal team.
He was the man referred to as N Srinivasan’s friend in Anurag Thakur’s recent response to the allegations of socializing with IPL hanger-on Karan Gilhotra, who was on the cricket board’s Anti-Corruption Unit watch list.
Read: All you need to know about Anurag Thakur vs N Srinivasan
But Neeraj Gunde prefers calling himself an activist, or a whistle-blower, who digs dirt on those ‘misusing their power’. Gunde also admits to being the one who contacted the ICC chief executive with pictures allegedly indicting Thakur.
Read: Share bookie info with your family: Anurag Thakur’s counter to N Srinivasan
Yet, he says that he knows Srinivasan personally and has been in touch with him. He scoffs at the talks about him being an adviser to the former BCCI president’s legal team. But he doesn’t deny that he was in Srinivasan’s corner during the IPL corruption case hearing in Supreme Court last year.
“How can I be a legal adviser to anyone? I have no law background. He had the likes of Kapil Sibal and Ram Jethmalani fighting his case. I am not bothered about being called Srinivasan’s friend. I am known to a lot of important people and vice versa,” he told The Indian Express.
Anti corruption crusader
He has been in the news and Gunde’s phones is constantly buzzing. Sitting in his plush apartment in Chembur, a central suburb in Mumbai, he is at ease answering calls. He doesn’t seem too perturbed by the sudden publicity.
If anything, he’s buoyed by it. He talks about being a much sought-after ‘source’ for all the top media-houses in the country. He drives around in a BMW, runs a successful business and is an adviser to many corporates. Gunde is an engineer by education and an entrepreneur by profession, but likes being, in his own words, “a crusader against corruption”.
“I only go after those who are involved in corruption, and against whom I have enough evidence and documentation,” he says.
“In the last couple of years, I have worked alongside BJP MP Subramanian Swamy on a number of issues, including aviation and 4G,” he says. In May last year, he had filed a complaint against Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh and Directorate General of Civil Aviatiaon, Prabhat Kumar, accusing them of buying benami property. He has made a few complaints to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money and other alleged corruption cases. Interestingly all his complaints are marked to the SIT chief and the Prime Minister. He was also party to the 2G case.
His charge against Thakur isn’t the first time Gunde has taken on the cricket administration. Earlier, he had filed complaints to the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) about a very senior official not being eligible for the top-post due to a conflict of interest.
When not filing complaints or petitions he’s not been shy of posting his alleged findings on Twitter, using his handle @365newsin. In November 2014, he alleged that Lalit Modi was throwing his weight behind Aditya Verma, the Bihar Cricket Association chief, who was the petitioner of the PIL against Srinivasan.
Then you ask him the obvious question. Why has someone who has challenged the who’s who of BCCI’s top-brass, from Modi to Thakur, never acted against Srinivasan?
“I haven’t found anything against him. He has been cleared by the Supreme Court of any wrongdoing. But I am not someone who will back down from anyone if I see that they’re involved in corruption,” says Gunde.
