Hyderabad, May 27: The CBI arrested Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy this evening in the illegal assets case against him, after grilling him for eight hours on his third straight day of questioning.
Jagan’s mother and MLA Vijayalakshmi, wife Bharati and sister Sharmila were sitting on a dharna outside the CBI office late tonight with about 20 to 25 family members and party supporters demanding his release.
Reports had earlier suggested the Kadapa MP might be arrested tomorrow when he has to appear at a CBI court. However, the change in plans became clear when, around 3pm, police began detaining workers of his YSR Congress across the state and put some 10 to 15 party leaders under house arrest.
Jagan will spend the night at the CBI camp office at Dilkhusha guesthouse before being produced in court tomorrow and, in all probability, will then be taken to the Chanchalguda jail for undertrials, sources said.
YSR Congress spokesperson J.P. Rao said the arrest was a conspiracy by the Congress and the main Opposition, Telugu Desam Party, to ensure Jagan did not campaign for the June 12 by-polls.
The by-elections, necessitated principally by the resignation of 17 Congress MLAs who have joined the YSR Congress, are being seen as a test for Jagan to prove he has emerged as a challenger to the Congress and the Desam.
Some others in the two principal parties too have been defying their bosses to stand by Jagan. When the Kadapa MP left his home for the CBI office this morning, he was accompanied by a Congress MP, two Congress MLAs and a Desam legislator.
Vijayalakshmi today said she suspected the death of her husband, former chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, in an air crash was not an accident but had been plotted by the Congress leadership.
The administration has taken precautionary steps to pre-empt violent protests. Public gatherings had already been prohibited under Section 144 in Hyderabad and Kadapa; now the orders have been extended to Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam too.
Some 1,000 additional police personnel have been deployed in Kadapa district and Jagan’s hometown of Pulivendula, where protests have begun. Stray violence, such as stoning of buses, has been reported from Rajahmundry, Kurnool and Vijayanagaram, where Jagan has a following.
In Hyderabad, the police forced workers to vacate the YSR Congress headquarters in Jubilee Hills. Security has been beefed up at the CBI court and the homes of Jagan, CBI judge Pullaiah, and Telugu Desam chief N. Chandrababu Naidu.
The CBI alleges that YSR had abused his office as chief minister to help his son amass a fortune. It says YSR’s Congress government granted illegal favours to businessmen who, in a quid pro quo, invested huge sums in Jagan’s loss-making companies.
Former minister M.V.R. Rao has been arrested in the case along with three businessmen and four bureaucrats.
