The Karnataka Congress on Monday evening announced its candidates for the Legislative Council elections. Some big names are missing from the 20-member list, such as floor leader SR Patil. But a new entrant is a man with many names: Yusuf Sharif, aka Scrap Babu, aka Gujri Babu, aka KGF Babu.
Yusuf, a scrap dealer and a Realtor, was aiming to get nominated from the Kolar Local Bodies Constituency. However, the Kolar ticket was given to Congress’s local unit chief Anil Kumar. Yusuf has been elected from Bangalore Urban seat. Now many observers are speculating about this ‘mystery man’ who parachuted into the election picture and cut the ticket.
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Who is Yusuf Sharif aka Scrap Babu?
Yusuf belongs to a poor family of Kolar Gold Fields. His parents had 14 children and he was the eldest among them. Being financially weak, Yusuf did not receive any education. He had to start earning to feed his younger brothers and sisters.
He started a small scrap shop in Kolar by taking loan from relatives. His luck turned in 2001. Kolar Gold Fields decided to auction 21 mill tanks used for refining crude gold. Yusuf gathered all his resources and won the auction for Rs 7 lakh.
13 kg gold found in junk
The mill tanks were very old and date back to the British era. But Joseph knew he would make a profit as each tank was 50 m x 50 m in size. But to his surprise, he found 13 kg of pure gold in a tank. Talking to a local news channel, he said that a tank had about two feet of concrete and had a hole in it. “While the KGF workers were refining the gold through chemical treatment and mercury, the gold had accumulated inside the concrete. No one knew and even I had no idea until I found it. The very day I got the gold, my wife gave birth to my daughter. I gave half a day off to all the workers of my scrap factory and sent them home,” he said.
Yusuf said that then he along with a trusted employee extracted the gold and shifted it to his house. In 2001, the price of gold at that time was around Rs 4,300 per 10 grams (24 carats), i.e. Babu got Rs 5.59 crore in one shot. If the profit from the scrap of iron mill tanks is also added, then an investment of Rs 7 lakh made him a profit of about Rs 6 crore.
In 2002, Yusuf won the auction of a used Jawa motorcycle factory for Rs 1 crore and made three times profit from it. After that, he never looked back. He bought property and factories through government and court auctions. Yusuf has now declared assets worth Rs 4,000 crore and says he worked 20 hours a day to get what he has now.
“You need to work so hard to earn Rs 10,000, you need to work hard to earn a lakh, and it takes all your strength to earn one crore. Once you earn one crore, you can double it, triple it in minutes. You need to work hard till you make it to one crore,” he said in a news channel interview.
However, his opponents allege that he did not always follow the legal path. Some claim that he stole gold from KGF, others say that he robbed money using muscle power. But Yusuf says it is his hard earned money, he doesn’t have any black money, and he runs his business only through legal means.
“I never take cash or give cash in business. All my business transactions are done through bank transfer. I have to pay tax of Rs 131 crore and I am paying it in installments.
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Babu and Bollywood
In August, Bengaluru’s regional transport authorities confiscated a dozen luxury cars for violating rules in the city. they found that one of them belonged to a bar Bollywood Superstar Amitabh Bachchan. RTO officials came to know that Yusuf Sharif had bought the vehicle later but did not change the documents in his name. Talking to the media, he had said that the insurance money is pending on the car for three months and hence it has been confiscated. When asked why he had not changed the documents in his name, he said, “My timing is going well now. But I don’t know what will happen in future. If I need to sell my car in future, it should be second hand and not third-hand. If I change it to my name, I become the second owner, and if I sell it, the car will be worth less. That’s the only reason I didn’t change the documents.”
According to Congress party sources, Yusuf got the ticket for the MLC election through party MLA Jamir Ahmed Khan. Jamir is a close aide of former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. Sources said Yusuf is a high potential funder for the party.
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