Bengaluru: Putting to rest speculation on ‘will he, won’t he’, Karnataka state BJP president and former chief minister BS Yeddyurappa has made an appearance at the opulent venue at the Bengaluru Palace Grounds where the daughter of controversial mining baron and party colleague Gali Janardana Reddy is getting married on Wednesday.
Yeddyurappa walked into the venue late Tuesday evening, indicating that he could be skipping the main wedding ceremony slated for Wednesday in light of criticism of the Rs 100-crore extravaganza when millions are crowding banks to withdraw spare cash post the demonetisation drive announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week.
The last time a wedding was spoken of so much, was probably in 1995 when V N Sudhakaran, the adopted son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, tied the knot one September morning.
At the time, Reddy was an MLC and a Minister in the BJP government headed by B S Yeddyurappa. Today, Reddy is an accused in the estimated Rs-3000-crore illegal mining scam, facing trial in a CBI court. He spent about three years in jail and has been on bail since January 2015. Separately, he has also been under investigation for allegedly trying to bribe a judge in Telangana to get bail in some of his earlier cases.
As Reddy’s 21-year-old daughter Brahmani gets set to tie the knot to 23-year-old Rajeev Reddy, another scion of a business family from Hyderabad, what meets the eye at the venue is opulence oozing out at every corner: huge balloons with the photos of the bride, groom and their families, jazzy lights on a jazzier stage, old-world rich chariots to ferry guests from the gate to the main hall, over a hundred foreign and traditional dancers for the shows, ‘hostesses’ to greet guests every five feet along the main corridor, horses and bullock-carts to recreate the Vijayanagara empire, flowers, pillars, lush carpets, sherwanis, silks and bouncers sporting walkie-talkies.
No one is under any illusion that the Income Tax department hasn’t seen this. Department officials confirm they have been watching the spend since November 8, when the first pujas began, and will continue to do so till November 19, when the elaborate ceremonies are likely to end.
One social activist has even filed a complaint with the IT department on Tuesday – “Such a huge expenditure could not have been done with legally earned money. Hence detailed investigation is needed in this connection by the department,” says T Narasimha Murthy, in his complaint.
“When people standing in long queues for exchange of their currency… the income tax officials are raiding the place of only small and common people… but ignoring the virtual palace constructed for this marriage,” read excerpts from his complaint to the DG, Income Tax (Investigations).
This comes in the peak wedding season when many commoners have had to postpone weddings, or minimise décor and wedding essentials, because of a currency crunch. The Reddy family do has not even faltered one step.
In the face of such lavish indulgence, many of the VVIPs invited to the wedding are keeping a safe distance. Reddy had personally invited chief minister Siddaramaiah, who will not be going. Others like former PM Deve Gowda made it a point to go to New Delhi on Tuesday itself, a day ahead of the Parliament session.
Worried after the outrage that the wedding has caused on social media and outside of it, state BJP leaders are fighting shy of the mega-event too. Though it was initially reported that the party has asked its leaders to stay away from the wedding, spokespersons said ‘there is no such diktat.’
“How can the party give such instructions? There is no question of that. People who have got invitations can decide on their own if they want to go or not,” said a spokesperson. Opposition leader in the Assembly Jagdish Shettar says he will go. “He came for my son’s wedding. He has called me, it’s on a personal note, so I will go,” he says. BJP MP from Ballari, Sriramulu, Reddy’s closest aide over the past decade, has been at the forefront of all preparations.
The Reddy family has always been known to live it up, with reports of seizure of huge quantities of gold as well as private helicopters from his Ballari home during the CBI investigation.
When Jaya had reportedly pulled out all stops 20 years ago at her now-estranged son’s wedding, she faced a slew of cases, including a disproportionate assets case for which a trial went on for 18 years.
With Reddy’s affluence on display now, Murthy asks the one question on everyone’s mind now, “Since Mr Reddy was in jail for 40 months, it is vital to know the source of income for this kind of extravagant marriage.”
In other words: just how much has gone into this and where did he get it from?
The proverbial sleepless nights that the rich are supposed to suffer from post-demonetisation seem to have evaded the exotic nights at play in Bengaluru’s Palace Grounds.
Also Read: Janardhana Reddy Hitches Comeback on Daughter’s Rs 100 Crore Wedding
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