Jagan Arrested, AP On High Alert

The inevitable has finally happened. Kadapa MP and YSR Congress President, Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, popularly known as Jagan, has been arrested by the CBI in the illegal assets case.

The controversial disproportionate assets case, which has been under investigation by the country's premier investigation agency for 9 months now, and which has seen the arrest of many erstwhile luminaries including Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, a state cabinet minister until the morning he was arrested, has finally claimed the biggest one of them all.

Jagan has been attending CBI questioning for 3 days now, for about 7 hours each day, at the Dilkusha Guest House on Raj Bhavan Road, makeshift office of the CBI. Speculation had been rife that the questioning would eventually result in his arrest. Section 144 (assembly of 5 or more persons being declared illegal) had been clamped on Hyderabad ever since May 25, and it has now been extended to most parts of the state.

Jagan is currently being held at the Dilkusha Guest House itself. He is due to be produced in the special CBI Court tomorrow (May 28) anyway.

Saga of the Impatient Young Turk

For those who came in late, Jaganmohan Reddy is alleged to have amassed huge wealth (rivals in the TDP claim it is around Rs. 1,00,000 crores) in the years that his father, the late Y S Rajasekhar Reddy, was the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh - from May 2004 until his death in September 2009.

The charges are that Y S Rajasekhar Reddy doled out scarce natural resources of the state and various licences flouting norms to industrialists, in return for which they invested in Jagan's various companies.

Y S Rajasekhar Reddy's unexpected death in September 2009 put Jagan in centrestage for his unabashed ambition to succeed his father as the Chief Minister of the state.

The Congress High Command did not oblige despite Jagan claiming the support of several dozen MLAs. 6 months later, Jagan launched an "Odarpu Yatra" (consolation tour) to various parts of the Rayalaseema and Andhra belts of Andhra Pradesh (the third is Telangana, where support for Jagan is marginal).

The yatra was ostensibly aimed at consoling the families of about 600 people who had allegedly died unable to bear the trauma of YSR's death.

However, for most people in political circles, it was Jagan's attempt at preserving his father's vote bank, and instigating a rebellion against the ruling Congress party in the state, since he refused to call it off despite the Congress asking him to.

The Congress gnashed its teeth and bore it for a few months, sticking to realpolitik and abstaining from expelling him for fear of being seen as the villian.

Jagan blinked first, eventually. The impatient young turk, tired of waiting for the Congress to fire him and thereby garner public sympathy, resigned from his post as the Kadapa MP and from the Congress in November 2010, citing insults to his father by the ruling party. His mother Y Vijayalakshmi resigned simultaneously as MLA of Pulivendula in Kadapa district.

He then started the YSR Congress in February 2011, and got himself and his mother Y Vijayalakshmi re-elected as Kadapa MP and Pulivendula MLA respectively, by thumping majorities in the May 2011 by-elections widely believed to have involved lots of money distribution.

Since then, he has continuously been on the roads, campaigning for his party and strengthening it. Other things that put him in the news were his new massive house in a posh Banjara Hills locality, and poaching of MLAs and MPs from other parties.

That is, until the law started beating down a path to his door.

The CBI Probe

Technically, the CBI investigation against Jagan is a culmination of allegations that he amassed enormous wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income.

Simply put, the charges are that his father as CM gave out precious land, mining rights and other licenses to various industrialists who all then, in a tacit quid pro quo arrangement, invested in several of Jagan's companies, including his TV (Sakshi TV) and Telugu newspaper (Sakshi).

The investigations was ordered by the AP High Court based on a PIL filed by P Shankar Rao of the Congress, started about 9 months back, and resulted in the CBI questioning - and eventually arresting - bureaucrats (Y Srilakshmi and B P Acharya among them), industrialists (Nimmagadda Prasad among them), ministers (Mopidevi Venkata Ramana) and others.

The 2 main areas of investigation are the Emaar scam (where IAS officer B P Acharya is accused no. 1) and the disproportionate assets case (where Jagan is accused no. 1). Jagan has finally been arrested in the latter case.

The CBI's primary contention is that the industrialists who put money in Jagan's companies did so at valuations that were not justifiable given the performance of the companies, and given the valuations at which investments prior to these happened.

Thus, the CBI claims that these investments were in reality bribes for favours doled out by YSR.

Rumours, Mud-Slinging, Wild Allegations and Gossip

So what is all this hulabaloo over a man being arrested, anyway?

What's with the CBI going on and on for months without arresting him? What's with the entire political class discussing him ever since he started off after his father's death? What's with the CM repeatedly fending off allegations by and on behalf of Jagan? What's with the police going into overdrive for days now? What's with national news channels making his arrest a media event?

Well, the thing is, Jagan is powerful. Very powerful.

Sure, he has a lot of money, and nobody disputes that including himself.

But that's not all. It's the unbridled ambition, and what he's rumouredly doing with the money to attain the ambition, that's creating the power.

The past 2 years have seen the state Congress government continuously worried about keeping its flock intact. While nearly a couple of dozen MLAs have actually resigned and joined Jagan's party, a few dozen others are rumoured to be willing to do it as and when needed.

Jagan will say it is all love for his father. A lot many people, specifically those in the Congress, will tell you that it's Jagan's money that's providing the gravitational force.

Indeed, hypothetically, if you really had Rs. 1,00,000 crores, you could pay each of the about 5 crore voters in AP Rs. 1,000 each for a vote, and still call it a miscellaneous expense. Or, you could just buy 150 MLAs for Rs. 25 crores each, and it would be even cheaper.

But there's also the reputation preceding the man. Pretty much everyone in the state has heard rumours about Jagan's private activities. We can't be spreading rumours now, but it suffices to say that most of them instill fear for the man.

Someone who has enormous money that he's willing to give you if you have something you can do for him, and who also instills fear, is quite likely to evoke extreme reactions - strong support or strong hatred - and that's what this is all about.

Most of Jagan's detractors point out that Jagan and his camp barely ever assert with any conviction that he is not corrupt. Instead, he chooses to detract attention by saying that Chandrababu Naidu was not investigated by the CBI, that Ramoji Rao (head of the leading Telugu daily Eenadu and ETV channels that continuously write about Jagan's "misdeeds") is corrupt, too, that this is the Congress seeking vengeance for his deserting it, and that the reputation of his father who brought the Congress to power twice in a row is being sullied.

Popular opinion is that the by-elections in 18 Assembly constituencies scheduled for June 18 necessitated by the resignations some months back of Congress MLAs supporting Jagan, will be swept by the YSR Congress, Jagan's party.

Electoral math is that Jagan is supported by Dalits many of whom are converted Christians (Jagan is a Christian), by the powerful Reddy community that is finding its base in the Congress eroding, and by the support base of all those leaders defecting to his party.

Plus, a sympathy wave following his arrest.

If that happens, it will be an interesting India on display.

An India where an extremely rich man accused of serious plundering of the state's resources that would have helped crores of poor people, is voted for by mostly those very poor people who feel sorry for him being prosecuted.

An India where a non-Hindu who publicly refused to sign the mandatory declaration for non-Hindus at perhaps the most sacred Hindu temple, that of Lord Venkateswara at Tirumala, is voted for by a hugely Hindu-majority state.

Yes, we live in interesting times.