For the last two days, an interesting news has been in circulation on the social media that a little-known infrastructure company has purchased the farmhouse of former Tamil Nadu chief minister late J Jayalalithaa located at Jeedimetla on Medchal road on the outskirts of Hyderabad.
The company – Sri Durga Infra & Developers – is understood to have bought the farmhouse – JJ Gardens – spread over nearly 18 acres, whose value easily runs into a few hundred crores.
Naturally, the reports evoked a lot of curiosity and people started enquiring about this infrastructure company. According to the data available from the registrar of companies, Sri Durga Infra and Developers was floated in August 2021 by two directors – Nenavath Ganesh and Nenavath Dasarath.
They have also understood to have floated a similar company this year with a paid-up capital of a couple of lakhs of rupees. So, the companies are very recently formed and have no background of taking up any major infra projects in the city.
Enquiries also revealed that the two directors are from ST community and they hail from Mahabubabad district of Telangana. Nothing more is known about them.
On the face of it, there is nothing to be suspected about their financial background and their capabilities to purchase the farmhouse of Jayalalithaa. Yet, the deal, which has not been confirmed yet, has evoked a lot of doubts in the people.
There are suspicions that both the directors could be the benamis of some big people in the Telugu states and their companies could be just shell companies floated exclusively to purchase the precious lands of Jayalalithaa.
A lot has been written about this farmhouse soon after the death of Jayalalithaa in December 2016. She bought this piece of agriculture land measuring 14.50 acres at Jeedimetla from three people over a period between 1967 and 1968 in the name of her mother Sandhya, also known as Vedavalli (Vedha), for a total of Rs 2.28 lakh.
It was a popular grape garden those days. Later, she bought another adjacent piece of land measuring 3.4 acres for Rs 20,000.
The grape garden was in the news during when the then Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy government served her a notice on January 25, 2007, stating that an 8.1-acre portion had been assigned to the poor during 1956-59. Jayalalithaa had denied the charges.
Besides, Jayalalithaa also owned a residential building at Rukmini Enclave at Marredpally in Secunderabad, which was registered in the name of her friend Sasikala Natarajan. She also had a commercial building in Srinagar Colony, close to the posh Banjara Hills, with an area of 14,000 sq ft. She used to visit her properties in Hyderabad regularly till 1999.
Now, the question is who could be behind the purchase of this grape garden in 18 acres of land at Jeedimetla.
Some say some Andhra industrialist with political links purchased it through the shell company and some others suspect that the developers must be benamis of the powers-that-be in Telangana.
It may take time to unearth the facts and till such time, they remain mere speculations.