Ashneer Grover Calls Hiring BharatPe Board Chairman Rajnish Kumar His Biggest Mistake

Launching an all-out attack against BharatPe chairman, its former managing director Ashneer Grover called hiring Rajnish Kumar as his biggest mistake. 

Kumar, who earlier served as the chief managing director of state-owned State Bank of India, currently serves as the chairman of the board of directors of BharatPe. 

In a tweet, Grover said, “Rajnish Kumar was my biggest hiring mistake. Not only because of what transpired – but bcoz I overlooked data. Under Rajnish as CMD, SBI stock tanked 25% in 3 yrs (INR 257 —> INR 192). That’s $8 Bn of value destruction. After he left it went to ₹570 (up 200%). Data is never dogla (hypocritical)!”

BharatPe turned down Inc42’s request for a comment citing the subjudice nature of the matter.

This comes in the middle of a protracted legal drama, including a plea filed by BharatPe to restrain Grover from making defamatory statements against it and its executives.

However, this is not the first time that Grover has trained his guns on Kumar. In February this year, Grover accused Kumar of being partisan in his feud with the company. He also accused the ex-SBI CMD and the then BharatPe cofounder Bhavik Koladiya of attempting parallel negotiations amidst the boardroom drama.

Few days ago, Grover also took potshots at BharatPe’s current chief executive officer (CEO) Suhail Sameer, accusing the latter of partaking in luxuries and listing a host of purported flailing products. 

Grover recently also tweeted against cofounder Shashvat Nakrani and the company’s general counsel Sumeet Singh.

Recently, he went on to claim that his book ‘Doglapan’ has ruffled feathers of executives at the fintech giant. 

At the centre of the debate is an INR 88.6 crore fraud case filed by the fintech company against Grover, his wife and former head of controls Madhuri Jain Grover and his family. 

Not just this, the startup also filed a criminal complaint with the Economic Offence Wing (EoW) against Grover. In addition, BharatPe also filed an arbitration with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) to claw back 1.4% of Grover’s unvested shares and to stop him from using the title of BharatPe’s cofounder.

In its plea before the Delhi High Court in the civil suit, the fintech major claimed that the Grover duo committed GST fraud, reimbursed fake vendors, and used company funds to buy personal items such as TV and refrigerators.