For RS Polls, Jagan Reddy Nominates Associate of His Father's Old Enemy – Ambani

Vijayawada: Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy’s gift – a Rajya Sabha membership – for Parimal Nathwani, the face of Reliance Group, springs little surprise.

It was pretty much expected when the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani personally escorted the aspirant and his friend Natwal to Jagan Reddy’s residence in Amaravati in the last week of February for a closed-door meeting.

Elections are scheduled to be held all over the country on March 26 for 57 seats in the Upper House, including four from Andhra Pradesh. Chandrababu’s Telugu Desam Party, with 21 seats in the 175-member state assembly, has fielded a Scheduled Caste candidate while Reddy with 151 seats has staked a claim for all the four seats.

It’s a sure win for Jagan’s party given his numerical strength.

Two of the four YSRCP candidates – Pilli Subhashchandra Bose and Mopidevi Venkata Ramana, ministers in his cabinet from the backward classes (BC) – are loyal to the YSR family. The two ministers lost their membership in the legislative council after the government’s decision to abolish it. Venkataramana, who was the excise minister during the previous Congress regime, was arrested by the CBI in 2012 as a co-accused along with Jagan Reddy in the disproportionate assets case.

The third candidate, Alla Ayodya Rami Reddy, is the founder of Ramky Infrastructure Limited with a presence in design-build-own-operate projects, real estate and infrastructure. Nathwani, a two-time Rajya Sabha member from Jharkhand, is aspiring to go to the Upper House for the third time from Andhra Pradesh on a YSRCP ticket.

Mukesh Ambani with Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. Photo: ANI/Twitter

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YSR’s spirited battle with Ambani group

What is surprising is Reddy’s decision to select a candidate from the very corporate powerhouse that his father late Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy had waged a spirited battle against.

At a time when his own Congress-led UPA government at the Centre and the opposition NDA maintained silence on the tussle between Mukesh Ambani’s RIL and his brother Anil’s Reliance Natural Resources Limited (RNRL) over the exploration of natural gas and oil in the KG (Krishna Godavari) basin, YSR or Rajasekhar Reddy raised his voice, defending the role of the government in settling the dispute.

Also read: Andhra Pradesh: What Explains Jagan's Decision to Have Three Capitals

When the Ambani brothers left the dispute resolution to their mother Kokila Ben, YSR shot off a letter to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying “Gas is a natural resource, a property of the nation, not of a private company.”

YSR, as the chief minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh, demanded allocation of 10% of gas explored by the Reliance group at a preferential price for his home state.

YSR’s war with the Ambani-led RIL was visibly public. The state government headed by him had even set up the Andhra Pradesh Gas Infrastructure Corporation to bid for the NELP (new exploration licensing policy) blocks in the KG basin in competition with the Reliance group. However, he could not take his anti-Reliance crusade forward due to his untimely death in a chopper crash in the Nallamala forests in 2009. Jagan Reddy’s followers subsequently vandalised Reliance showrooms, filling stations across the state, suspecting a conspiracy allegedly hatched by Mukesh Ambani in the killing of YSR.

Jagan Reddy, leading his party’s election campaign last year, promised to follow his father’s legacy as his heir apparent. But his decision favouring Reliance group’s Nathwani is not in tandem with the ideals of the late YSR, commented an analyst Ch.V.M. Krishna Rao.

Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy with the YSRC Rajya Sabha candidates. Photo: YSRCParty/Twitter

Jagan’s compromise with his father’s rival?

Political expediency evidently took precedence over the legacy of Jagan’s father when it came to the selection of Nathwani for the Rajya Sabha ticket.

Soon after his candidature was announced by the YSRC spokesperson Ummareddy Venkateswarlu, Nathwani took to Twitter to express his gratitude to chief minister Jagan Reddy. Interestingly, the tweet also tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, indicating the fact that he had been handpicked by Reddy for the Rajya Sabha at the behest of the top guns in the NDA.

Also read: Industry Caught in Jagan-Naidu’s One-Upmanship in Andhra Pradesh

The NDA considers Jagan to be a friend in need and his YSRC continues to aid in the passage of most key bills in the Rajya Sabha when the NDA falls short of required strength. The tag sparked a debate about which party Nathwani belonged to – YSRC or BJP. The chief minister is understood to have obliged at the request of the NDA leaders in favour of Nathwani, hoping to receive the Centre’s help in getting relief from cases with the Enforcement Directorate in which he is a prime accused.

In addition, Reddy needs cooperation from the Centre in executing his government’s agenda which includes distributive capitals, abolition of Andhra Pradesh’s legislative council and containing his arch-rival Chandrababu Naidu, analysts feel. A YSRC leader, on the condition of anonymity, told The Wire that the gesture favouring Nathwani for the Rajya Sabha ticket would surely help Jagan recast his image as a pro-industry leader after the confusion ensued about the plans by Kia Motors to move its plant away from Andhra Pradesh.

Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and Chandrababu Naidu. Photo: PTI

For Ambani, it’s shooting two birds with one shot—sending his confidante to the Rajya Sabha and finding a friend in chief minister Jagan Reddy, who heads a state where Ambani's Reliance group has heavy business stakes which faced uncertainty after his relations with YSR were strained. The group obviously could not work alongside the Jagan Reddy government, due to the state's reservation policy asking private industry players to mandatorily employ 75% of the workforce from his home state.

Naidu’s game plan

Knowing, with a level of certitude, that his party could not win any of the four seats with its insufficient strength in the assembly, TDP’s Chandrababu Naidu wisely fielded a candidate that would keep his flock together. The TDP won 23 seats but at least three of its members pledged allegiance to YSRC. With its strength having plummeted to 20, the TDP is unlikely to win any seat.

Also read: Why Andhra Pradesh's Jaganmohan Reddy Has Taken a U-Turn on NPR

Any candidate requires not less than 41 MLAs to get elected to the Rajya Sabha. The TDP aims to fix its defectors and press for their disqualification if they indulge in cross-voting in violation of the whip. But the Jagan’s party doesn’t require MLAs from the opposition camp since it can win all the four seats with its existing strength.

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