Wednesday, May 30, 2012

They are all in it.

In 2004 Mr YSR Reddy of Congress became the Chief Minister of Andhra. His son, Jaganmohan was denied a seat so he went off to Bangalore in the neighboring state of Karnataka. In 2004 Mr YSR Reddy declared total family assets of Rs 5 million and Rs 918,000 for his son, Jagan. During 2008-9 Mr Jagan paid Rs 292,000 as tax for the entire financial year to April, but in April 2009 he declared financial assets worth Rs 774 million including ancestral property of Rs 210 million. If the property is ancestral why was it not included among his assets previously? Nobody questions a Congress fellow. By May 2011 he declared assets of Rs 3.65 billion plus Rs 413.3 million in the name of his wife, Y Bharti. However, rivals allege that this is just peanuts compared to his actual wealth. Apparently, he has built a palace in Yelahanka on the outskirts of Bangalore worth Rs 4 billion. To build a house you need to register the land and apply for building permission. Surely this would have come to the notice of the Karnataka authorities but nobody uttered a peep. This is especially surprising because Karnataka has a BJP government since May 2008 and BJP is in opposition to the Congress. Jagan amassed his wealth by establishing a string of companies which received money from industrialists who were given land in Andhra by his father, YSR. For instance, former Minister of Excise in Andhra, Mopidevi Venkataramana is in prison because he allocated 24,000 acres of land to a company. He says he was called to YSR's office and told to sign on the deal and could not refuse because YSR had pulled him out of oblivion. Maytas, an infrastructure company promoted by Ramalinga Raju of Satyam fame was given lucrative contracts in Andhra by YSR. Raju " invested " money in a company called Vanpic whose promoter then paid the money into Jagan's company. In another deal one Gali Janardan Reddy was allotted iron mines for captive use meaning he could use the ore only for his steel mill. However, Mining Secretary, T Srilakshmi deleted the words " for captive use " so Gali was able to export iron ore to China for windfall profits. The steel plant was never built and Srilakshmi is now in jail. A sordid story of unlimited greed and accumulation of illicit wealth by a criminal son motivated by the expectation of immunity from any prosecution by a doting politician. So, what is so surprising. All politicians in India stand for elections with the aim of milking the state. The reason why all this is coming out is because Jagan made the mistake of taking on The Family. YSR was killed in September 2009 in a helicopter crash and Jagan wanted to inherit the Chief Minister's chair which was denied by the party chief. He left Congress and formed his own party calling it YSR Congress banking on his father's popularity to protect him against any backlash. Even opposition parties are terrified of going against The Family so that was a fatal miscalculation. All state agencies were unleashed on him and he has been arrested. Outsiders will not believe that the code of the mafia governs our establishment. But Jagan may yet provide us with a glimpse into the dark heart of the evil beast.

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