Drama at the gates

When a spanking new Honda Accord, with Verghese Kurien seated in the back seat, rolled into the gates of Institute of Rural Management, Anand (Irma), at around 9:15 am on Friday, the campus wore a serene quiet look.

But over the next hour or so, a drama unfolded outside the gates of Irma, as Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) director Bakul Dholakia, National Institute of Design (NID) governing council chairman Hasmukh Shah and Vijay Mahajan, who runs the country's best known microfinance institute, were denied entry into the country's only rural management institute.

"You cannot prevent us from entering inside. By whose order are we not being allowed into the campus," said a visibly agitated Bakul Dholakia, as he and Hasmukh Shah stepped out of a car after being prevented from entering Irma at around 9:20 am.

Dholakia set the tone for the drama by telling the private security personnel, "The person who signed this order (L K Vaswani) is not legally appointed at chairman of Irma," he said while reacting to a written letter by Vaswani to the security agency, allowing nine persons in and asking them to prevent the remaining six from entering.

Within a couple of minutes, the car of GCMMF managing director B M Vyas arrived. Although Vyas did not get down, both Dholakia and Shah were seen asking him to consider their point of view. In the meantime, Amrita Patel and a couple of government nominees on the board had already moved in.

Meanwhile, Vijay Mahajan, managing director, Basix arrived at the scene and was promptly informed by the security personnel (from the United Security services) that he could not go in.

All the three who had not been allowed inside, then sat on a one-foot high wall just outside the gate of Irma, much to the amusement of several VIPs who arrived for the Irma convocation scheduled at 11 am.

And although V Ramachandran and E Abraham (the two other board members who were told in writing that they could not attend Friday's board meeting) did not arrive, K Prathap Reddy, the sixth person disallowed from entering the board meet, walked out from the gate, leaving the security personnel unsure whether to salute him, as they did a few days ago.

"I reached the board meeting room, but was told by the security personnel that I cannot attend the meeting. I do not even have an invitation to attend the convocation of an institution that I was connected with for 16 years," Reddy, said, as he walked away alone.

More drama was to follow. Within minutes of going in, NDDB chairperson Amrita Patel returned. She had staged a walkout from the board meeting.

Inside though, a defiant V Kurien said, "I must manage this institution and I will do so even if it requires expulsion of some of the board members," reacting to questions on why he did not allow six members to attend the board meet.

The timing of the meeting of the board of governors too raised eyebrows. Originally scheduled to be held at 10 am, the board meeting was advanced to 9:30 am and members were communicated this change in writing.

"But I reached at 9:25 am, but the meeting had already begun, which means that it had began much before the scheduled time, and nobody in the board was informed of this change," said Neelima Khaitan, member of the board of governors.