It’s the first time in the state’s history that the president of a regional party and a Member of Parlia-ment has been arrested on corruption charges and jailed.
High profile leaders from the state have been arrested in the past, but most of them were preventive arrests. In August 1984, the then chief minister N.T. Rama Rao was arrested when he squatted in Raj Bhavan in the infamous Nadendla Bhaskara Rao-Governor Ramlal episode.
Chandrababu Naidu, Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy and K. Chandrasekhar Rao, among other political party leaders, have been arrested for staging dharnas, but never have they been jailed on serious criminal charges.
Former Telugu Desam ministers Krishna Yadav and Rama Subba Reddy were arrested and jailed before being let out on bail. Rama Subba Reddy’s charge in the double murder case was quashed.
YSR Congress president Jagan Mohan Reddy, one of the country’s richest politicians, joins the list of high-profile leaders from other parts of the country arrested on corruption charges, such as former telecom minister A. Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi and Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi.
Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy, who owns media houses, a power company and other businesses, was arrested by the CBI after three days of intensive questioning in the disproportionate assets case. The CBI probed his links with the Vanpic project and huge investments made in his businesses by companies that got land and other favours in return, when Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Mr Jagan’s father, was chief minister of the state.
Though Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy is the main accused in most of the cases, since he is no more, it is his son Jagan Mohan Reddy, whose assets and income swelled in a short time during his father’s tenure, who is facing the heat, along with Cabinet ministers, bureaucrats and other officials accused of connivance.
Few days before Mr Jagan Mohan Reddy’s arrest, former state excise minister Mopidevi Venkataramana was arrested.
Key Allegations against Jagan
Jagan got predated valuation of Jagati Publications. Deloitte valued it at Rs3,050 crores. Jagan used the valuation report for conversion of bribe amounts from various companies in the form of investments into Jagathi.
During 2005, Sandur Power offered 1.75 crore equity shares at the rate of Rs10 to two Mauritius-based companies 2I Capital (PCC) and Pluri Emerging Company at Rs71 per share and received Rs124 crore from the two companies. Around Rs90 crore of it was used to repay bank loans.
Jagan and Vijay Sai floated suitcase companies like Artillegence Bio Innovation, Bay Inland Finance to route the ill-gotten amounts as investments into Jagati.
Jagan created fictitious transaction of selling 82 lakh shares of Sandur Power to companies that were later merged with Keelawn technologies. The four companies — ZM Infotech, Nelcastm, Excel and Sai Suryam Signam — do not exist at their address.