Jagan investors relieved

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Investors in Jagan Mohan Reddy’s companies as well as the ministers and bureaucrats involved in the controversial GOs that formed the base of the CBI’s quid pro quo allegations heaved a sigh of relief on Sunday as the Kadapa MP was arrested.

Except for Nimmagadda Prasad from the investors’ group and former excise minister Mopidevi Venkatar-amana on the administrative front, none of the other “potential accused” were arrested. They, however, had attended several rounds of questioning by the premier investigating agency.

According to sources, the investors had been hoping that Jagan’s arrest would take the heat away from them and their own arrest would not be considered as a matter of significance by the CBI.

“We had been caught between the devil and the deep sea ever since Jagan parted ways with the Congress and launched a war against the latter,” an investor in Jagan’s companies said. They tried to argue that decisions taken by the government as part of industrial promotion should not be projected as undue benefits at a later stage.

Ministers and bureaucrats involved in Jagan’s assets case, though indirectly, were also no exceptions. They were spending sleepless nights particularly after the arrest of former excise minister Mopidevi Venkata Ramana fearing that they might be next in line.

Senior ministers Dharmana Prasada Rao, Ponnala Lakshmaiah, Kanna Lakshmin-arayana, J. Geetha Reddy and P. Sabita Reddy, besides Venkata Ramana, had received notices from the Supreme Court to explain the GOs.

Immediately after the CBI took Ramana into custody there were large scale speculations that another minister would be arrested before Jagan’s arrest. There were apprehensions within the Congress that there might be a political backlash if it was perceived that Ramana, who belongs to the BC community, was being made a scapegoat.

In fact home minister P. Sabita Reddy had to face an embarrassing situation with critics in the party portraying her as the next possible target of the CBI. The ruling party, however, heaved a sigh of relief when Mr Venkata Ramana blamed YSR in his resignation letter and there was not much resistance from the former minister’s followers.