By Stewart Bell
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.
This story was originally published in globalnews.ca. Read the full story here.
