Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) general secretary N. Chandrababu Naidu’s only son, Nara Lokesh, made a grand entry into active politics as he received his unopposed election to the state Legislative Council on Friday amid a controversy over the phenomenal increase in his assets value from Rs 14.50 crore to Rs 329 crore within a short span of six months.
As Lokesh is one of the four MLC candidates proposed by his party for the biennial elections to the council from the MLAs’ quota and two from Opposition YSR Congress as against the total six vacancies, there is no need for election and all the six who filed nominations are being declared unopposed. Lokesh is also set to join his father Naidu’s Cabinet by the month end or first week of April.
Lokesh, 34, who is also the national general secretary of TDP, has submitted an affidavit before the Election Commission (EC) stating that he has assets worth Rs 329.52 crore, including Rs 230 crore worth shares in his family held dairy company, Heritage Foods Limited, as part of the statutory formalities for the MLC elections.
This has kicked off a row as the value is several folds higher than the assets declared by him in October 2016—at Rs 14.50 crore, including Rs 2.52 crore worth shares in Heritage Foods. Opposition parties, including YSR Congress, wanted to know how Lokesh had managed to increase his assets manifold in such a short span.
Chandrababu Naidu and his family have been voluntarily declaring their assets before the public since October 2012 as part of their policy to promote probity in public life. Naidu has taken the step to declare his assets at a time when he faced massive challenge from YSR Congress leader Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, who was facing CBI cases against his disproportionate assets.
Initially, Naidu declared his assets, but after he became the Chief Minister, Lokesh has taken that responsibility. In October 2016, Lokesh stated that his wife Brahmani, granddaughter of late N.T. Rama Rao, had total assets valued at Rs 12.75 crore and his three-year-old son, Devansh, had assets worth Rs 11.32 crore.
However, in his EC affidavit, Lokesh has stated that the worth of his wife’s assets has gone up to Rs 22 crore, while his son’s assets slightly dipped to Rs 11.25 crore. If his mother Bhuvaneshwari’s assets worth Rs 32 crore and his father Chandrababu Naidu’s assets worth Rs 10.14 crore, too, are included, the total family’s worth is put at Rs 400 crore.
The sharp hike in Lokesh’s value of assets comes in the wake of sale of his family’s stake in the retail wing of Heritage Foods—Heritage Fresh —to Kishore Biyani’s Future Group on 7 November 2016, a day before the scrapping of big notes by the PM. As part of the deal, the Future Group will take over the 124 stores of Heritage Fresh and Heritage Foods will get 3.65% share of Heritage Fresh, valued at Rs 295 crore.
Responding to the allegations that either he had suppressed information of his assets six months ago or he had amassed wealth through unfair methods since then, Lokesh, who spoke to the media after receiving the election papers from the MLC returning officer in Vijayawada on Thursday, said that the value of the assets declared now was “at the market value” in tune with the EC’s format.
“The assets which I declared in October last year were calculated at their value when I purchased the shares, but now the EC norms stipulate that the present market prices should be mentioned in the affidavit. I have not done anything wrong and there is no need to hide anything from the public,” he said, adding that he and his family were committed to probity in public life.
“It is a fact that the dairy business in the country is booming. Heritage Foods, which my father started in 1992, has grown over the years. My father transferred around 11 lakh shares of the company to me in 1999 and I purchased another 14 lakh shares subsequently. If the allotment price of shares at the time was Rs 10, now they stand at Rs 1,098 per share,” he said. Currently, he has 25 lakh shares in Heritage Foods. Lokesh’s office also issued a statement stating that his wife Brahmani draws an annual salary of Rs 4 crore for managing the affairs of Heritage Foods and this was not included in the assets list in October. The value of some of her family gifts, too, is included in the EC affidavit, the statement said.
Lokesh also took a swipe at his arch rival Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and said: “Jagan, has amassed huge wealth by hiking the value of shares of Jagathi Publishers, from Rs 10 to Rs 1,400 per share even before the company has completed its first year.”