‘Totally false’: Vijaypat Singhania pans photo with son Gautam, claims done with ulterior motive

Days after Raymond chief Gautam Singhania’s post on X hinting at reconciliation with his father Vijaypat went viral, the senior Singhania issued a clarification on Monday, claiming all was not well. 

Vijaypat claimed he was coerced by his son to meet him at JK House and that the picture doing rounds  on social media, was done with an “ulterior motive”.

Gautam’s post ‘welcoming’ his father to JK House came at a time when he is in the middle of an ugly divorce battle with Nawaz Modi, who is demanding 75 percent of his wealth as part of the settlement to secure the financial well-being of their two daughters.

“Since the media is asking, I’ll try to clarify my position. On Wednesday, 20th March. While I was on my way to the airport, I received a call from Gautam’s assistant, repeatedly trying to persuade me to come to the JK House. When I refused, he (Gautam) came online himself. and said he will take only five minutes of my time over a cup of coffee. I went most reluctantly, not realising that it was for an ulterior motive of taking my photograph with Gautam to send a wrong message to the media. A few minutes later, I came down and left for the airport. Soon after, I started receiving messages over my photo with Gautam on the Internet, claiming we had made up, which was totally false,” he said.

“Within a short time, it was all over the media. I don’t know what his real motive was, but it was certainly not for coffee, nor to resolve our differences. The fact is, it is the first time in 10 years that I have ever entered JK House, and I don’t think I’m going there again.”

Vijaypat, who transformed Raymond from a small fabric company into a world-renowned brand and then handed over the reins to Gautam in 2015, went public, saying he had made a ‘stupid’ mistake of giving everything to his son and that parents should “think very carefully before they give away everything to their children”.

In an earlier interview with Business Today, the former Raymond boss said that he would not want to interfere in the decision made by Gautam and Nawaz Modi. He made it clear that he stands by his daughter-in-law and will support her and not his son.

On being asked if he would be open to speaking to his son if Nawaz approaches him, Vijaypat Singhania said, “My first answer would be yes, I’d be open to meeting him. My second answer is that meeting him has no meaning because he won’t listen to me.”

“And if I say something which he doesn’t like, he may scream at me, he may abuse me. He does all these kinds of things. So, I would probably try to keep away as much as I can,” he added.

Vijaypat, in the interaction, also said that his son Gautam took away everything from him, and that he survives on the little money he is left with.

“I have no business. He had agreed to give me some parts of the company. But of course, for him to back out is a two-second deal, he backed out. So I have nothing else, I gave him everything. By mistake I was left with some money on which I’m surviving today. Otherwise I would have been on the road. He’d be happy to see me on the road. I’m sure of that. If he can throw his wife out like this, throw his father out like this, I don’t know what he is,” he said.