I am the rebel slave, Ashneer Grover tells BharatPe investors in resignation letter

New Delhi: There was a new twist to the BharatPe saga on Tuesday, when cofounder and managing director Ashneer Grover resigned from the company and its board. In his resignation letter, sent to BharatPe's board, Grover accused its investors of treating founders like slaves.

"You treat us founders as slaves – pushing us to build multi-billion-dollar businesses and cutting us down at will. [The] investor-founder relationship in India is one of master-slave," Grover wrote in his letter.

"I am the rebel slave who must be hung by the tree so none of the other slaves can dare to be like me ever again," he added.


Also Read | Have nothing to hide, open to publishing my financial assets publicly: Ashneer Grover

Grover’s resignation comes after the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) rejected his emergency plea last week, seeking to halt the ongoing governance review at the company.

“The fundamental fact is that all of you as investors are so far removed from reality that you’ve forgotten what real businesses look like and have no appreciation for what it took to run this enterprise day in and day out," Grover said.

Also Read | Read Ashneer Grover’s resignation letter sent to the BharatPe board

He said that from being celebrated as the face of Indian entrepreneurship, he is now wasting his time fighting a long, lonely battle against his own investors and management. Unfortunately, in this battle, the management has lost what is actually at stake – BharatPe – he said.

On February 23, BharatPe fired head of controls Madhuri Jain, who is Grover's wife, on charges of misappropriating funds. Jain’s stock options were also cancelled.