The Modi ‘friends’ who helped finance Poilievre’s leadership campaign

Two months into his 2022 leadership campaign, Pierre Poilievre spoke at the home of Aditya Tawatia, a politically active Vancouver realtor.

“Delighted to host the next Prime Minister of Canada,” Tawatia wrote on X, adding his mother had “blessed” Poilievre’s campaign.

Tawatia donated $1,675 to Poilievre’s leadership bid and has since kicked in another $3,750 to the Conservative Party of Canada.

It wasn’t the first time Tawatia had backed an aspiring prime minister: He is the founder of a Canadian organization set up to elect Narendra Modi in India.

The summer before Modi’s 2014 election victory, Tawatia was among a group of supporters that gathered at the Hilton Garden Inn in Mississauga, Ont.

At the daylong conference, they wore scarves with the lotus symbol of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and launched the Overseas Friends of BJP Canada.

Modi’s Hindu nationalist party eventually won, and went on to transform India into a rising power, but also to allegedly interfere in Canada’s elections and assassinate a prominent Sikh leader in Surrey, B.C.

Meanwhile, Tawatia and the BJP’s other original Canadian “friends” put their money behind a politician closer to home.

Elections Canada records show the four founding convenors of the Overseas Friends of BJP Canada donated thousands of dollars to Poilievre’s leadership campaign.

On top of Tawatia’s contribution, the former Toronto and Montreal chapter leaders each gave $1,675, while the ex-convenor in Ottawa put in $500.

They opened their pockets further for the Conservative party and have lent their support in other ways. Photos on Tawatia’s X account show him with Poilievre at seven events.

He also met with the co-chair of Poilievre’s leadership campaign in Ottawa, and hosted a breakfast at his home for two Conservative MPs and party supporters to discuss the Tory “vision for Canada’s future.”

Another former Friends of BJP leader, Shiv Bhasker, has been photographed with Poilievre at events as well, and recently sought the Conservative Party nomination in an Ottawa suburb, although he lost.

While the Overseas Friends of BJP has dissolved in Canada, those who started it now run other Indo-Canadian organizations that have featured Poilievre as a speaker.

“We like the Conservative Party, so what?” responded Tawatia, the former convener of the Friends of BJP’s Vancouver chapter, who has referred to Poilievre on social media as “our dynamic leader.”

“It is nothing wrong,” he added. “We are the most patriotic Canadians, we are proud to be Canadian, we are doing good things for democracy.”

A Conservative spokesperson said almost 37,000 donors contributed to Poilievre’s leadership campaign, and he had won overwhelmingly.

Given the tensions between the Modi government and the Liberals, it may be unsurprising that Canadians who supported the BJP have backed the Conservative leader.

Former Friends of BJP official Shivendra Dwidevi said diplomatic relations with India had deteriorated under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

“We are pro-Poilievre because he seemed the best alternative to a prime minister who was basically driving the relationship into the toilet,” he said.

In interviews with Global News, the original leaders of the Friends of BJP said the group was no longer active, but they continued to push for improved ties with India.

The high-powered group of Indo-Canadian professionals includes a professor of immunology, a realtor and yoga promoter, a physician and an accountant.

They said that when it existed, Friends of BJP was an independent Canadian organization with no ties to India that was focused on bringing change.

“Absolutely, we were people who wanted a change of government in India because of the corruption in the [ruling] Congress party,” Dwivedi said.

The former Montreal chapter leader, Dwivedi, said backing the BJP was a rejection of the corruption rampant in India under the Congress party.

“So it’s not a pro-Modi thing, it’s not a pro-BJP thing. It’s an anti-corruption thing,” the Montreal anesthesiologist and award-winning philanthropist said.

Although they acknowledged having funded Poilievre and the Conservatives in recent years, they said they were simply backing the party they felt was best for Canada.

“The big challenge that we find is the Khalistani element,” said Bhasker, referring to the movement that wants independence for India’s Sikh-majority Punjab.

Like other former Friends of BJP leaders, Bhasker pointed to pro-Khalistan activists as the source of the frictions between Canada and India.

In their view, the separatist movement’s supporters in Canada have threatened Hindus and clashed with them at places of worship.

“Hindu-Canadians have been threatened — they don’t feel safe,” said Bhasker, a Poilievre donor and the former Friends of BJP’s Ottawa representative.

“Hindu-Canadians feel even that the intelligence agencies, you know the police forces, are compromised and they have been infiltrated by these Khalistan elements.”

Balpreet Singh of the World Sikh Organization countered that depicting Canada as having been infiltrated by pro-Khalistan extremists was “a narrative right out of India.”

“The RCMP has made some very strong statements about what India is doing in Canada, and that’s not because Khalistanis are telling the RCMP what to do. It’s because India has engaged in very serious criminal activity here in Canada.”

Whoever wins the federal election will have to contend with what a Public Safety Canada memo described as rising discord between Canadian Hindus and Sikhs.

Trudeau’s announcement that India was suspected in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent B.C. Sikh leader, “increased tensions,” the memo to ministers said.

The new government will also face a Canada-India friendship that is badly frayed. India wants a crackdown on Canada’s Khalistan independence movement, although it is now a largely peaceful protest campaign.

And Canada accuses India of targeting Canadian Sikh activists and funding Canadian politicians they deem sympathetic to their national interests.

Managing India and its challenge to Canadian sovereignty will be a foreign policy priority for the future prime minister, but will Ottawa stand firm or bend to Modi?

“We have some very serious concerns about what we’re seeing in the Conservative Party,” said Singh of the World Sikh Organization.

He said it was troubling that Poilievre had spoken at functions organized by groups run by former Friends of BJP officials.

“It’s alarming to see our politicians attending these events.”

Corporate records show that no less than three Overseas Friends of BJP Canada organizations were once registered across the country.

Prior to the 2014 Indian election that pitted Modi’s party against the ruling Indian National Congress, “units” were formed in the U.S., U.K. and Canada, according to the BJP website.

Their mission was to project a “positive and correct image of India and BJP to the Western world, and correct the distortions and false image of BJP” the party website said.

“What happened was, BJP was not in power. So they just came here to see if we can help them in India by calling people, calling our relatives type of thing, to see if we can generate support,” Bhasker said.

“So that’s all we did. We didn’t have any relationship with BJP or anything,” he said. “There was no political interference.”

Two months after Modi took office, Tawatia registered the group in B.C. under the name Overseas Friends of BJP Canada Inc., records show.

A banner at one of his events shows Tawatia’s photo beside those of the head of the BJP’s overseas wing Vijay Jolly, Modi and his right-hand man, Amit Shah, whom Canada has accused of approving Nijjar’s murder.

A month later, Azad Kaushik, the convener of the Toronto chapter, registered the Overseas Friends of BJP Canada with the federal government.

In its incorporation papers, Azad’s group pledged to “establish and maintain ideological relations with Bharatiya Janata Party of India on socio-political issues.”

Kaushik said the group reflected the popular discontent with the Indian government at the time. “So that’s what led us to lean towards BJP,” he said.

Once the election was behind them, the Friends of BJP shifted focus to Modi’s 2015 visit to Canada, he said.

A third group, Overseas Friends of Bharatiya Janata Party Canada, was launched with Corporations Canada in 2017, with Tawatia on the board.

But it changed its name in 2018 to the Canada India Global Forum. Dwivedi became its national president while Tawatia was the leader for B.C.

Even under its new name, the Forum still nodded to Modi’s party in its constitution, which spelled out that its mission is to “align” with the BJP in India, records show.

According to its website, the Forum’s national executive member is a former BJP convener who served as president of the “Modi Army.”

A man by that same name donated $1,675 to Poilievre’s leadership campaign. He did not respond to questions sent by email.

Bhasker served briefly on the Forum’s board but then left to form the Overseas Friends of India Canada. “We are basically kind of advocacy for the Indo-Canadians in Canada,” he said.

His group has received $ 36,000 from federal government’s Canada Summer Jobs program since 2021.

For his part, Kaushik created the National Alliance of Indo-Canadians and folded his Friends of BJP group in 2021.

“We had done our job,” he said. “Each one of us went our own way.”

The Friends of BJP in the United States, meanwhile, remains active but has registered under the country’s foreign agents laws.

According to its registration papers, the American organization has “regular communications with officials of the BJP” and acts under its direction.

Canada has passed legislation to create a similar registry but it is not yet up and running.

As the Canadian Security Intelligence Service focused increasingly on India, officers approached the former Friends of BJP Ottawa leader.

They wanted to know about Bhasker’s organization and its relationship with the Indian High Commission in Ottawa, he said.

“They just asked, ‘Do you guys deal with them?’ And I said the only time we deal with them is when we invite them for our events.”

“And when they have an event, they invite us, but there’s no other relationship,” he said, describing the encounter as a five-minute conversation in 2018.

Dwivedi said he also met with CSIS that year. He said the intelligence officers wanted to know about the Canada India Global Forum.

“And I explained to them that this is my role as the national president. I’ve got chapters in four or five cities. My role as the national president is to promote India-Canada trade and India-Canada political relations.”

“I have no allegiance to the BJP or to any government or to anything. I’m a Canadian,” he said. He said he knew Trudeau “well” and had dined with him.

Elections Canada records show he is the only of the four founding Friends of BJP convenors to have donated to the Liberals, but he has not contributed to the party since 2019, and the amount was less than half what he has since given the Conservatives.

“I supported both parties in the past,” he said. “We’re not BJP People. We never have been BJP people. We’re Indo-Canadians who are trying to improve relations between the two countries for the benefit of both.”

CSIS declined to comment.

On Oct. 26, 2022, Poilievre was a keynote speaker at an event on Parliament Hill marking Diwali, the celebration of lights that is observed by Hindus and Sikhs.

He returned to the same function the following year.

Both evenings were hosted by Bhasker’s Overseas Friends of India Canada. The Global Canada India Forum (formerly the Friends of BJP) was listed as a sponsor.

The 2023 gathering took place two months after Trudeau revealed Indian agents were suspected of killing Nijjar, with Poilievre seated next to India’s High Commissioner Sanjay Verma.

“It is not uncommon for elected officials of all parties to interact with foreign diplomats at such events,” said Conservative spokesperson Sam Lilly.

“It’s disappointing that some are attempting to portray a Diwali event for one of the most joyful holidays as anything other than a celebration with the community,” he said.

“Trying to politicize a Diwali celebration overlooks centuries of traditions and sentiments of millions of Hindus and Sikhs.”

Liberal MP Chandra Arya also attended the receptions, along with NDP, Green and Bloc Québécois MPs, but Poilievre was the only leader of a major party.

The event was started by the late Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai, Bhasker said. While all parties attended, he said Hindu-Canadians were a natural fit for the Conservatives.

“Their values are much more conservative,” said Bhasker, who campaigned to represent the Conservatives in Kanata, Ont. but came second.

“We don’t believe in handouts, We want to work hard. We want lower taxes. We want smaller government. We promote business,” he said.

While Kaushik agreed that Hindu-Canadians tended to be conservative,” he said the community was now unsure who to vote for in this election.

The retired University of Guelph professor claimed the Conservatives had nominated candidates he described as “Khalistani extremist elements.”

“I’m a hardcore Conservative. I’ll stay Conservative, I’ll vote Conservative in my riding, but we are not happy about it,” Kaushik said.

Tawatia, the B.C. chapter leader of the Canada India Global Forum, called the assertion that BJP supporters were voting Conservative a “misconception.”

“I have so many friends in Toronto, they are not Conservative,” he said. “You are getting the second-hand vicious news from other organizations.”

Last November, Poilievre angered some supporters by pulling out of the 2024 Parliament Hill Diwali event he had attended the previous two years.

Bhasker responded in a letter by demanding an apology for what he called the failure to “draw a necessary distinction between the Canadian Indian community and the Indian government.”

Poilievre dropped an Indo-Canadian candidate last week over an online response that appeared to endorse sending Canadians to India to face retaliation from the Modi government.

Although he donated to Poilievre and gave another $1,000 to Conservative Shuvaloy Majumdar’s successful 2023 by-election campaign in Alberta, Dwivedi said his group was not endorsing the party.

“When it comes to this election, as an organization, as the president, I say we are not openly supporting either party,” he said. “What I’ve said to my members is, ‘You please vote for the best candidate you think is to represent you in your riding.’”

The new prime minister will have to take a “stronger line” against the pro-Khalistan movement in Canada in order to reset the fractured relationship with India, Dwivedi said.

“That would go a long way,” he said.

Canadian Sikh leaders, who want India held to account for its campaign of assassination plots and transnational repression targeting their community, said that view was troubling.

The assertion that the problem is that Canada has been too soft on the Khalistan movement is fueled by the Modi government, said the national spokesperson for the Sikh Federation Canada.

“This narrative is being fed from India, in my opinion,” Singh said. “And unfortunately, the homegrown Canada-based Hindu community has bought into it for whatever reason.”

“And I think that’s problematic.”

He said pro-India groups in Canada were likely looking for an alternative to the Liberals, whom they blamed for strained relations with India.

The Conservative Party, meanwhile, had remained too silent on India’s illicit activities in Canada and kept a distance from Sikh organizations, he said.

(The party spokesperson countered that the Conservatives had denounced Nijjar’s murder and India’s intimidation of Canadian Sikhs.)

To see the Conservatives interacting with groups whose executives have a pro-BJP pedigree and a former “Modi Army” leader is a worry, he said.

“It is really concerning if those are the individuals that are now donating, promoting, and pushing candidates,” he said.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca