VIJAYAWADA: TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh on Thursday declared his assets as well as those of his family members, including former chief minister and TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu, in the wake of YSRC leaders accusing the family of corruption following the recent raids by the Income Tax (I-T) department. Barring Lokesh, all members of the family saw a slight increase in their net assets.
Naidu’s assets increased by Rs 87 lakh from last year to Rs 9 crore. With loans and liabilities of Rs 5.13 crore, his net assets stood at Rs 3.87 crore. The increase in assets was due to a rise in savings account balances and cash to the tune of Rs 70 lakh and a reduction of bank loan amount by about Rs 18 lakh.
His wife Bhuvaneswari’s net assets increased by Rs 8.50 crore to Rs 39.58 crore. While her total assets are worth Rs 50.62 crore, she has loans and liabilities to the tune of Rs 11.04 crore.
Lokesh’s net assets dropped to Rs 19 crore from Rs 21.40 crore, and while his assets are worth Rs 24.70 crore, he has liabilities to the tune of Rs 5.70 crore. He said he gifted his shares in Nirvana Holdings Private Limited - the family’s investment company - to his wife Brahmani.
Meanwhile, the value of Brahmani’s net assets rose by Rs 3.81 crore to Rs 11.52 crore. She has assets worth Rs 15.68 crore and liabilities to the tune of Rs 4.17 crore.
Naidu’s grandson Devansh saw a Rs 71 lakh increase in wealth, with his total assets valued at Rs 19.42 crore. Apart from a plot in Jubilee Hills worth Rs 16.17 crore, he had fixed deposits to the tune of Rs 3.18 crore and Rs 3.19 crore in his bank savings account. He also got 26,440 shares in Heritage Foods as a gift from his grandfather N Balakrishna. Nirvana Holdings, meanwhile, saw an increase in net assets from Rs 6.83 crore to Rs 9.10 crore.
Lokesh said the value of these assets was calculated at the rate at which they were bought and not at the current market price. There are ups and downs in the open market prices, he added, explaining, for instance, that the value of Heritage Foods stood at Rs 2,500 crore a year ago and has now dropped to Rs 1,800 crore.
Maintaining that the family did not acquire the assets by misusing power, Lokesh said it was Naidu and the TDP that sought electoral reforms and the cancellation of higher denomination currency notes to ensure transparency in politics. He further said his family has declared its assets for the past nine years and would continue to do so. “I am challenging those making allegations over our assets to declare their properties first. Your (CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy) assets should be announced by you and not by the ED and CBI,’’ he said.
In the same breath, he added that anyone who could prove that his family had even one rupee or yard more than declared, could get them free of cost. “I have been making the same challenge for the last nine years, and there are no takers except the YSRC leaders, who are making baseless allegations,” he said, adding that in the past nine months, YSRC leaders have failed to prove even one allegation against the TDP for the last five years, and demanded an apology from them.
Taking to Twitter, YSRC MP V Vijaysai Reddy said, “The basic fact is that both @ncbn and his son are the biggest liability to the state of AP and the country. The assets declared today is a routine drama since their undeclared, benami, siphoned and secret bank accounts are never declared and investigated.’’ In another tweet, he asked, “Is @ncbn ready for a CBI inquiry in the process of acquiring Lands and Assets in the name of benamis? Is he and his son ready for an inquiry into the Swiss Banks accounts of their own and their benamis.”