With the arrest of YSR Congress president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy in the illegal assets case against him, his wife Bharati is set to play a new, bigger role in the family businesses.
Bharati, a post graduate in business administration, said she would now play a bigger role in the businesses though she has been involved in running the corporate affairs albeit in a different way.
Her mother-in-law Y.S. Vijaya Lakshmi and sister-in-law Sharmila have taken over the mantle of the party's campaigning for the June 12 bye-elections to 18 assembly seats and one Lok Sabha constituency.
"Actually, I have always been part of businesses. For the past one-and-a-half years, since he (Jagan) had no time, so I have been taking a bigger role in business," she said.
Dismissing allegations of corruption surrounding Jagan, she said all the businesses of the family are run like an 'open book'.
"Who was Jagan Mohan Reddy, till he became an MP? He was nobody. He was not a minister, not an MLA. He was no one in the government. We shifted to Bangalore in 2002. We moved here (Hyderabad) only in 2010. A year after my father-in-law passed away, we moved here. Not before that," she said.
Fourth day of questioning for Jagan
Meanwhile, the CBI were on Wednesday quizzing Jagan for the fourth day.
The agency, which took Jagan into custody from the Chanchalguda Jail in Hyderabad, grilled him about the flow of investments into Jagati Publications, Indira Television and Janani Infrastructure Pvt Ltd - promoted and owned by Jagan and also about the land and buildings in the name of these three firms, agency sources said.
The CBI also quizzed Kakinada (Urban) MLA Dwarampudi Chandrasekhara Reddy and Jagan's financial advisor V. Vijay Sai Reddy (another accused in the DA case and now out on bail) for the second day in a row today.
Chandrasekhara Reddy, who is said to have been a director in Janani Infrastructure Pvt Ltd, was learnt to have been questioned by the CBI over his alleged role in buying plots in the name of Janani and also on creation of buildings for Sakshi printing units in different parts of Andhra Pradesh. The CBI questioned the MLA till Wednesday afternoon.
Chandrasekhara Reddy had expressed solidarity with YSR Congress and its honorary president Y.S. Vijayalaxmi, who is currently campaigning for the June 12 bye-elections.
Jagan, who was arrested by the agency on May 27 in the illegal assets case, is in judicial remand till June 11 and lodged at Chanchalguda jail. The AP High Court had last week given Jagan's custody to CBI for five days till June 7.