Rajgopal Reddy’s affidavit reveals Rs 60 crore deal with BJP leader Venkatswamy

Hyderabad: The candidature of Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy apparently has not come too easy for the Bharatiya Janata Party, if the cash transactions between the former Congress MLA and senior BJP leader G Vivek Venkatswamy are any indication. Apart from a Rs 25 crore ‘inter corporate deposit’ from Venkatswamy’s Visaka Industries into Rajgopal Reddy’s Sushee Infra […]

Hyderabad: The candidature of Komatireddy Rajgopal Reddy apparently has not come too easy for the Bharatiya Janata Party, if the cash transactions between the former Congress MLA and senior BJP leader G Vivek Venkatswamy are any indication.

Apart from a Rs 25 crore ‘inter corporate deposit’ from Venkatswamy’s Visaka Industries into Rajgopal Reddy’s Sushee Infra and Mining Limited, that came to light last month, the BJP’s Munugode candidate’s affidavit, available on the Election Commission of India’s website (https://affidavit.eci.gov.in/) proves that there was another transaction worth nearly Rs 60 crore between Rajgopal Reddy and Visaka Industries.

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On Page 14 of the affidavit, under the section in which the candidate has to give details of his liabilities/dues, Rajgopal Reddy mentions a liability of Rs 59,95,00,000 which he received as ‘advance against sale of land from Visaka Industries Ltd’. This Rs 59.95 crore liability comprises almost most of Rajgopal Reddy’s liabilities, which total to Rs 61.55 crore.

Twitter user K Pratik Reddy, who tweeted the relevant page from the affidavit on Wednesday, said that surprisingly, ‘Visaka’s books did not reflect this transaction under Capital Advance (Current Assets) head in its Balance Sheet for 2022’.

This could be because of two possibilities, he said. One would be to ‘avoid disclosure’, or because it was ‘alleged advance’.

“1st is worse. 2nd makes it even worse as it makes the purchase price very obvious,” he said, asking whether Rajgopal Reddy was the ‘costliest buy ever’ by BJP.

Last month, just a few days after Rajgopal Reddy admitted on a Telugu news channel that he had got a Rs 18,000 crore contract from the BJP-led Centre six months ago after participating in a bid, cash deals involving Reddy and the BJP’s Huzurabad legislator, Eatala Rajender, had come to light.

Both had got the cash from Venkatswamy. That time, it was the consolidated financial statements of Visaka Industries for the fiscal that ended on March 31 this year that revealed that Rajgopal Reddy’s firm, Sushee Infra and Mining Limited, was given an ‘inter corporate deposit’ of Rs 2,500 lakh (Rs.25 crore). In March 2021, Visaka Industries gave a similar inter corporate deposit of Rs 1,000 lakh (Rs 10 crore) to Jamuna Hatcheries, a firm connected to Eatala Rajender, who also joined the BJP soon after the transaction.