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If Only It Was An Internal Matter...

In Andhra, Satyam was a favourite of all parties. Perhaps that's why they are playing shy.

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If Only It Was An Internal Matter...
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When the Congress came to power in ’04, the Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy government provided an even more salubrious climate for the Rajus. Sources say that he has friends in the BJP’s central leadership as well. Raju reportedly "funded" pre-election surveys done by a "native" psephologist for the party around the country. Indeed, a TDP leader described Raju as "an opportunist", not inclined in particular towards any political party but "loyal" as long his work gets done.

In fact, the lasting image of Raju from the TDP era is that of him sharing the dais with former US president Bill Clinton and Chandrababu at a CII conference in Hyderabad. Under Congress rule, he went on a real estate buying spree and snapped up a slew of prestigious projects that include the Rs 12,000 crore metro rail scheme, the Rs 1,500-crore Machilipatnam Port project, and three SEZs in Kakinada.

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Given that both the TDP and the Congress enjoyed a close relationship with Satyam’s promoters, they are now treading cautiously in attacking the other. But given the company’s 53,000 employees and thousands of shareholders—most of them from the state’s burgeoning middle class—neither party can be seen to be "protecting" Raju.

YSR, for instance, had earlier dismissed Satyam’s problems as an "internal matter", which SEBI would take care of. But within hours of the release of Raju’s confessional letter, he went into damage control mode. "I only said Satyam’s attempt to take over Maytas was an issue between those two companies. The state had no role," he said, announcing a preliminary CB-CID probe.

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Promising to explore the possibility of arresting Raju, Reddy requested the prime minister to constitute a management team to steer Satyam while asking his chief secretary to re-examine the award of the controversial metro rail project to Maytas Infra. This was to pre-empt any attack by the BJP, something it has nevertheless seized upon. (Delhi Metro Rail chief E. Sreedharan had warned the Planning Commission that alterations in the project may lead to a political scandal later, pitting him against the state government.)

The TDP, on its part, is distancing itself from the whole episode. K. Yerranaidu, TDP leader in the LS, told Outlook, "As long as we were in power, there was no episode in Satyam...all this is post-2004." The BJP is also moving cautiously, though senior state leader Vidyasagar Rao has accused the Congress of "benefitting through mobilisation of advances to Maytas in almost all deals". A BJP source even alleged that the attempted Maytas-Satyam merger was aimed at reviving Maytas so that money could be moved to political parties for the forthcoming general elections. As the heat intensifies, one can expect more such talk.

By Smita Gupta in Delhi with Venugopal Pillai in Hyderabad

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