'Outlook Business' article is full of lies
YSR Congress Party has out rightly rejected and condemned the contents of the article ‘Doing Business the Jagan way’ published in the fortnightly ‘Outlook Business’ dated 24th November 2012. The following is the full text of the rejoinder sent to the editor of the magazine by D. A. Somayajulu, member of the party’s Political Affairs Committee.
From:
D A Somayajulu
Member,
Political Affairs Committee &
Central Governing Committee
YSR CONGRESS PARTY
(Formerly, Economic Advisor & Dy. Chairman,
Agriculture Technology Mission
Government of AP)
Mobile: + 91 9849908504
Mail: somayajuluda@yahoo.com
22nd November 2012
To
The Editor
Outlook Business
Sir,
I refer to the Article ‘Doing Business the Jagan way’ in your Fortnightly dated 24th November 2012.
At the outset, I would like to submit that Going by the tone and tenor of the article, it is irresistible for me to believe that you have fallen for the systematic vilification campaign launched by Telugu Desam Party (TDP) with a sinister design to tarnish the image of the late Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Mr Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, his family, friends and the YSR Congress Party. I am sorry to say that the half truths and the lies that found way into the article are nothing but a recitation of what TDP has been relentlessly propagating since the year 2009 i.e. when it became crystal clear to them that defeating YSR on the political battle field was next to impossibility; so they started to damage the personal reputation of YSR in the fond hope of weaning away some of the supporters of YSR. Unfortunately, because Mr Jaganmohan Reddy walked out of the Congress Party in defiance of the diktat of Madam Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Party also started witch hunting Mr Jaganmohan Reddy.
Indeed, there are many corruption cases in our own State like those against Mr Chandrababu Naidu that have not been brought to the public knowledge thanks to his clout with the Media. Had you taken up such issues, I would have appreciated your commitment for cleanliness in public life. But by repeating what TDP and Congress have been campaigning against Mr Jagan, I am sorry to say that you are only serving their cause but certainly not the public cause. Moreover, when the CBI, ED and IT are already probing the case against Mr Jagan leaving no stone unturned with extraordinary zeal, your article at this juncture has little meaning.
I have been in public life for over three and half decades; I had the good fortune of association with premier institutions that pioneered entrepreneurial development in Andhra Pradesh besides promotion of home grown technologies. I also was privileged to closely work with the late Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy both when he was the Leader of the Opposition (1999-2004) and after he became the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (2004-09). I continued in the Government till May 2011, when I resigned to become Advisor to Mr Y S Jaganmohan Reddy.
Mr Y S Jaganmohan Reddy has been an entrepreneur in his own right, in his own small way, since 1994 onwards. He was never an employee nor an intern anywhere, much less under Mr Lagadapati Rajgopal; nor was there any compulsion for him to depend on his in-law’s financial support, as he came from relatively affluent background. Mr Jagan promoted a 40 MW hydro power project in Karnataka with a capital outlay of Rs 170 crores much before his father became CM of Andhra Pradesh on 14th May 2004. He promoted two more small hydro power projects at the same time. He continued his pursuit even after his father became CM.
It is everybody’s knowledge that post 2004, Indian economy boomed like never before, registering a GDP growth rate as high as 10% in some of the years. The country achieved Current Account surplus. The Credit Deposit ratio of Indian banking system which remained subdued at 55% throughout the NDA rule has suddenly scaled upto 75% by the year 2008, pumping in an additional Rs 12 lakh crores bank finance into the system. There was phenomenal buoyancy in the capital markets and FDI influx into the country, providing, over all, an extremely congenial atmosphere for industrial expansion. Not only Mr Jagan but thousands of other entrepreneurs, who were by no stretch of imagination related to any politician, let alone to a CM, grabbed these opportunities and grew very substantially.
India is a country which offers opportunities to everybody with talent, hard work and dedication to grow. We have seen as to how a Sub Inspector from Mumbai has become country’s home minister; a police constable from AP has recently become a Union Minister in the recent cabinet expansion. This is a country where Mr Dirubhai Ambani, a clerk in a Petrol bunk, in his own life time, became India’s largest corporate body providing employment directly or indirectly to about 3 lakh persons contributing 3% of India’s GDP. Same is the case with Mr Narayana Murthy of Infosys, Adanis, Ruias, Agarwal of Vedanta group, Lakshmi Mittal and a thousand others.
In my own state, the institution with which I was associated promoted hundreds of first generation entrepreneurs, who had no access to financial resources. They include Dr Reddy of Reddy Laboratories, Mr K V K Raju of Nagarjuna Fertlilizer group, Mr B V Raju, who promoted several cement factories including Raasi and Vishnu Cements, Mr G V Krishna Reddy, who started the Novopan and later the GVK group, Mr G M Rao of GMR group, Mr B. Ramalinga Raju of Satyam group, only to name a few. They were not sons of CMs; nor they had any great business experience before they became great entrepreneurs. Indeed, they demonstrated to the world that lack of financial resources cannot stop a truly great entrepreneur from progressing and growing big. Same is the case with Mr Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Sri Lagadapati Rajgopal and Sri Nama Nageswara Rao. Indeed, it is no special advantage being the son of a politician. In fact, if only Mr Jagan was not son of a CM, perhaps, he would have done much better.
I am shocked that, out of all people, Mr Rajgopal and Mr Nama Nageswara Rao, whose rags to riches story in the shortest possible time should eminently qualify as a case study in the best of business schools in the world, should be telling your reporter that Mr Jagan had to use his father’s position to grow as an entrepreneur. Where were these two people hardly ten years ago? What was their group net worth then and what is their business net worth now? One is a Congress MP and the other is a TDP MP. Will they be honest enough to tell us how much of their political clout has contributed to their business growth? Are they not casting the aspersions against Mr Jagan only to please their political bosses? If you thought that Mr Jagan’s rise as a businessman was phenomenal, what should you think of Mr Rajgopal, who became India’s largest private power developer with the assets in his companies exceeding atleast 20 times more than that of Mr Jagan.
Unfortunately, all the people your reporter spoke to are in one way or other connected to TDP and Congress Parties and are sworn enemies of YSR family not because of any ideological differences nor because of their commitment for honesty in public life but because they are unable to defeat either YSR when he was alive or Mr Jagan now. Mr Jayaprakash Narayana and his political outfit have always postured themselves as crusaders against corruption. There was one major scam or the other throughout the 9 years rule of Mr Chandrababu Naidu. Let alone championing those issues himself, he did not even symbolically join the opposition parties which raised hundreds of allegations of corruption against Mr Chandrababu Naidu and his TDP Government during 1994-2004; But he loses no opportunity to hit out at Mr Jagan, although Mr Jagan himself was never in the Government. There is thus much more than what meets the eye.
Coming to the Raja of Corruption, the book published by TDP before the 2009 General Elections, it is nothing but a trick all the political parties have been playing in our State during election times. The BJP issued a charge sheet comprising 100 corruption charges in 1998 elections against Mr Chandrababu’s TDP Government and the BJP went to the extent of openly declaring that if they came to power in Delhi, the first thing they would do was to arrest Mr Chandrababu Naidu. Unfortunately Mr Vajpayee became PM with TDP support; so, they forgot the charge sheet. Similarly, the Communist party also issued a big charge sheet against Mr Chandrababu Naidu and forgot about it. Following the same practice of their one time allies, before the last general elections, the TDP brought out ’Raja of Corruption’’ which is nothing but a scandalous pamphlet designed to tarnish the image of late YSR. Through that scandalous book, the TDP launched a relentless campaign with the help of a large number of media outfits supporting their Party throughout the Country that YSR family illegally accumulated one lakh crores of rupees. The UPA Government which examined the contents of that book safely consigned it to dust bin in 2009.
The whole situation changed with the untimely death of YSR in a plane crash in September 2009. For the TDP, which was hoping to encash the sudden vacuum in the leadership in the state following the death of the invincible YSR, the decision by Mr Jaganmohan Reddy to start a new political party naturally came as a rude shock. The Congress Party was also shaken by his decision to leave the Party. That Mr Jagan was walking away virtually with the entire vote bank of not only Congress Party but also of Telugu Desam Party was not something the Congress High Command and Mr. Chandrababu Naidu could digest. Both of them came together in filing the PIL against Mr. Jaganmohan Reddy. This is unthinkable. They are trying to malign his image in the fond hope of regaining the vote bank, which is simply not happening. The High Court ordered a CBI probe. Because, it is not a court monitored CBI case, it became PMO monitored CBI case with all the attendant vagaries.
The entire investigation by CBI in the case against Mr Jagan is pre-meditated to somehow implicate him in one case or the other only because he walked out of the Congress Party in November 2010. This is an unprecedented case in the Political & Legal history of the Country; it typically exemplifies as to how the Congress High Command has been using every institution in the Country to stifle political dissent, if by chance one gets on to the wrong side of the Congress High command. It is relevant to recall that all the political parties, including those supporting the UPA, during the debate on the Lok Pal bill both in Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, have in unequivocal terms condemned the deliberate misuse of all investigative agencies in India by the Congress High command for eliminating political dissent.
Shocked by the unethical arrest of Mr Jaganmohan Reddy on 27-5-2012, when he was in the midst of his Party’s election campaign for the then upcoming by-election to one Lok Sabha seat and 18 MLA seats in AP, ‘The Hindu’in its Editorial entitled ‘Petty scheming, big bullying’ published on 29-5-2012 commented
“If the Congress is to effectively meet the Jaganmohan Reddy challenge, it will have to do so politically, and not through the disproportionate use of investigative assets.’
As far as the allegation of quid pro quo in the share investments of Mr Jagan’s two companies viz Bharati Cement and Jagati publications, it is important to note that there are many persons, who were the beneficiaries of any Government largesse also invested in the shares of these companies at the same premium as others against whom there are complaints of quid pro quo. In any case, the shares continue to be in the names of the investors.
There is no complaint that these investments are benami for Mr Jagan. The investors are free to sell at any time to anybody of their choice. The premium collected by these companies is with the company itself. There are no complaints that Mr Jagan has either siphoned or misappropriated the premium amount in the companies. Moreover, these companies are not sham companies. Bharati Cement is producing high quality cement and Jagati is publishing Sakshi Telugu daily which is the second largest circulated Telugu Daily, besides running a very popular News Channel.
For one to say that the premium collected by Jagati that publishes this news paper is exorbitant, the nearest comparison has to be necessarily with EENADU whose circulation is more or less equal to that of Sakshi published by Jagati. The premium at which the owners of Ushodaya, the company publishing EENADU sold 26% of the shares to JM Financials is atleast 200% more than the one charged by Jagati. Ushodaya could do this even in the face of huge accumulated losses of Rs 1800 crores for their group. This was possible because the Media was the hot favourite of the investors at that time. The Sun TV network had a market capitalization of Rs 12000 crores and Deccan Chronicle had a market capitalization of Rs 4,000 crores at that time. Given this, how can anybody conclude that a quid pro quo was involved when Jagati sold some of its shares at a premium?
The fact that 51% of the shares of Bharati cement were purchased by a global cement giant at much higher premium than what Mr Jagan charged from the investors against whom there are charges of favouring Mr Jagan should make it clear that the actual value of the shares of Bharati Cement were many times more than what is really collected by Bharati Cement. Then, where is the quid pro quo, particularly when many of the investors in Bharati Cement gained substantially on the aforesaid transaction with the global cement giant?
The limited issue is ---what did the CBI unearth so far other than what Mr Jaganmohan Reddy himself has disclosed to Lok Sabha Secretariat, IT, ROC and in the Affidavits filed with Election Commission of India in 2009? In fact, the Raja of Corruption is also in a way a reproduction of what Mr Jagan himself has disclosed to the world; there was certainly nothing new that they brought out.
Where is that one lakh crore of rupees; where is the recently revised 43,000 crore rupees? Who will take responsibility for these figures? It is so unfortunate that the Congress High Command in alliance with TDP manufactures a figure of Rs 1,00,000 crores assets of Mr Jagan and with the help of a section of Media carries on relentless propaganda about that figure and they want Mr Jagan to prove that it is not correct, that too keeping him in confinement. How unfortunate is the whole story?
I would have appreciated had you spoken to Mr Jagan or some of his family members before publishing this article.
I shall be grateful if you publish this as it is in your upcoming fortnightly as our rejoinder.
Regards
Yours faithfully,
Somayajulu