Mumbai: Ever since the recent controversy swirling around Chanda Kochhar erupted, she has been skipping public engagements. But on Friday, at the India Foundation event, which has on board many BJP bigwigs, ICICI Bank MD and CEO Chanda Kochhar turned up rather early.
Trying not to draw attention, she seated herself in the VIP lounge at BSE, where the IF’s India Economic Summit 2018 was unravelling. Among other distinguished guests in the lounge were Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha. Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu too was directed to the VIP lounge but decided to stay away. Kochhar came out of the lounge only after Prabhu and Sinha had made it to the dais and the summit was about to start.
The event was also attended by Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis and Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal. But Fadnavis took leave as soon as his speech was over. After that, Prabhu made his exit, which was followed by Kochhar. She remained quiet throughout the public appearance and rushed out without answering questions raised by reporters. IF is an independent research centre, which has several BPJ heavyweights as its directors — Suresh Prabhu, Nirmala Sitharaman, Jayant Sinha, M J Akbar and Ram Madhav Varanasi.