Politicians in most parts of the country lead a lavish life, but it is the lifestyle of the sons of Chief Ministers in Andhra Pradesh which gives a startling picture of the politics of Andhra Pradesh. While the case of an exorbitant rise in the wealth of Jagan Mohan Reddy had come to light when his father YS Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief minister, the latest one to be facing the heat is current Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu’s son Lokesh Nara.
As per the assets declared by him in late February, there has been a drastic hike in his assets in a period of just about 6 months. From Rs 14.50 crore in October 2016, his asset value now stands at around Rs 330 crore in February end. The 34-year-old Lokesh made the declaration of his and his family’s assets when he filed his nomination for a berth in the Legislative Council.
His Rs 330 crore property includes the Rs 273.84 crore that he has spent in the form of shares in Heritage Foods, fixed assets worth Rs 18 crore and ancestral property worth Rs 38.52 crore. However, he has been consistently defending the sharp change in his wealth claiming that the assets that he declared in October gave the original amount that was invested in the shares in the company. He also claimed that the value of shares in Heritage Foods had seen an exponential rise.
An MBA graduate from Stanford University, Lokesh claims that he has inherited a family property worth nearly 38 crores. Lokesh Nara has already filed his nomination for election to the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council is also likely to be soon seen as a part of his father’s cabinet.
However, this is not the first case of an exponential rise in the value of the property of an Andhra Pradesh’s Chief Minister’s son. The growth in properties and assets of Jagan Mohan Reddy during his father’s tenure is still spoken of.
Just a few weeks before YS Rajasekhara Reddy took charge as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh in 2004, the declared income of Jagan was Rs 9,19,951. However, five years after his father’s tenure as the CM, he declared Rs 77.40 crore as his income, showing a steep rise of over 770 per cent.
Reddy began his career when he got a contract worth Rs 25 crore for mini-hydroelectric projects in Karimnagar, Andhra Pradesh, and Shimoga in Karnataka. Sandur Power Co. Ltd is one of the main entities from where Jagan draws his wealth. By the time YSR assumed his position as the chief minister again in 2009, Jagan had spent Rs 107 crore on Sandur. Several of his assets have come under scrutiny and have been attached since then.
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