The personal assets of Nara Lokesh, son of Andhra Pradesh CM Chandra Babu Naidu, have skyrocketed over the span of five years. In October 2016, Lokesh registered his assets as Rs. 14.50 crore. By the end of February, he declared total market value as Rs. 330 crores.
On Monday, Lokesh filed an affidavit which declared his and his family’s total assets to the election commission as he filed his nomination for a seat in the Legislative council. Lokesh in this affidavit declared his movable assets as Rs. 273,83,94,996 which are in the form of shares in the family run Heritage Foods Ltd.
On November 8 in 2016, Chandrababu Naidu’s family led Heritage Foods was partially sold to Future Retail Ltd., owned and led by Kishore Biyani. With Lokesh as executive director, the Heritage Food retained 3.65 percent stakes through Rs. 295 crore freshly issued shares. Lokesh in the affidavit also declared Rs. 18 crores worth of immovable assets, an inheritance of Rs. 38.51 crores and liabilities worth Rs. 6.28 crores which make his total worth Rs. 330 crores.
Lokesh, in October 2016, declared total assets of Rs 14.50 crore and liabilities of Rs 6.35 crore. Brahmani, Lokesh’s wife, owned assets worth Rs 5.38 crore and his then one year-old son Devansh had assets worth Rs 11.17 crore. These include an inherited house valued at Rs 9.17 crore and Rs. 2 crore in fixed deposits.
Speaking to a popular news daily, Lokesh said he had not acquired assets in the last five months. He said “My declaration of assets last October was based on acquisition value. EC guidelines stipulate that the true market value should be disclosed so I declared the assets’ value as per latest market rates. I had inherited Heritage Foods shares from my father in 1998 and I own 23,66,400 shares and the market value of each share was less than Rs. 200 till 2010. Now the share value is around Rs 1,100 which increased the total value of the shares that I own to Rs. 273 crore.’’
Lokesh also said that “the value of the house was also calculated according to existing market rates while it cost us a few thousand rupees when we purchased it in 1989. I have not purchased or acquired any new assets recently.” Lokesh also said his wife, Brahmani owned 1 lakh shares in Heritage Foods and that his mother Bhuvaneshwari owned 53 lakh shares.
