How Chandrababu Naidu awarded infra projects to earn kickbacks masking as election funds

Hyderabad: Income-Tax Department issued a show cause notice to Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief Nara Chandrababu Naidu for having an undisclosed income of Rs 118 crore, which he allegedly received as kickbacks from infrastructure companies.

IT department in the notice said: "Manoj Vasudev Pardasany (MVP), who was taking part in the tendering process in Andhra Pradesh on behalf of Shapoorji Pallonji & Co Pvt Ltd (SPCL) since December 2017, siphoned off Rs 118 crore funds from SPCL and L&T and delivered them to Chandrababu Naidu through companies such as Phoenix Infra & Pour Trading.”

How the entire transaction did take place?

Manoj Vasudev Pardasany known as MVP visited Andhra Pradesh in 2016 with the Foxconn team who wanted to establish a manufacturing facility in the state.

His friend Vivek Reddy introduced MVP through the Industry Secretary of the Andhra government. With many EPC contracts in the pipeline, they were in the process of setting up a new capital city. MVP approached SPCL (Shapoorji Pallonj) Hyderabad for the projects.

Having given them the details, they were very keen to take part in the tenders. Many projects were bagged by MVP in competitive bidding against L&T, NCC, and other major infrastructure companies. By December 2018, SPCL had procured orders to the tune of Rs 8.000 crore.

In February 2019, MVP met Chandrababu Naidu, the then CM of Andhra Pradesh, and discussed the general progress of all the work/projects going on in SPCL. He asked him to meet Srinivas (PS to Chandrababu Naidu). MVP was asked to give Rs 100 Crore for the party funds as the elections were approaching.

He was then introduced to Vinay Nangalia, a CA. Vinay Nangalla owned three companies 'Annai’, 'Haigreeva’, and 'Shalaka’. Funds were transferred from SPCL to Annai, Haigreeva, Shalaka, and Naolin and Everett.

Accordingly, work was subcontracted to these companies and payments were made for work orders.

Vinay and Vicky's role in transfer of money

"The cash generation from these companies was handled by Vicky and Vinay Nangalia. I have no idea how the cash was generated in these companies. They were the main persons who managed the cash from the pickup from these companies to deliver it to the TDP party in Andhra," said MVP in a statement to the IT department.

MVP was only informed about the status of payments made by Shapoorji Pallonji and the corresponding cash delivery to the TDP and was informed by them in the end that all the payments amounting to Rs 7.54 crore, Rs 33.36 crore, and Rs 11.60 crore from the companies Annai, Haigreevaa, and Shalakha respectively. The funds have reached to reach to P. Srinivas.

Funds were siphoned off from projects

MVP on two different occasions in his statement recorded admitted that he was asked by Srinivas to arrange funds for the TDP party in Andhra.

From the statements of MVP recorded in November 2019, it was revealed that funds were siphoned off from projects allocated to SP by the Andhra Pradesh Government without doing any actual work.

The projects bagged by SPCL included the EWS housing project in Kurnool, Guntur, Anantpur, and West Godavari amounting to Approx Rs 7000 Cr Government housing project in Amravati for approximately Rs 700 Cr.

The key persons involved in introducing the bogus companies to MVP and managing cash delivery were Vinay Nangalia and Vicky Jain.

Recovered chats, excel sheets

The officials recovered several incriminating messages, chats, and Excel sheets during search operations which show the delivery of cash to Srinivas.

When MVP was confronted, he revealed the entire modus operandi by which money was taken out from infrastructure projects through bogus contracts and delivered to Srinivas.

Vinay Nangalia, who was a CA helped MVP arrange 3 companies (Annai, Haigreeva, and Shalaka) that would be willing to enter into bogus contracts and arrange pass-back of cash to MVP for distribution to the TDP Party.

The officials also found chats that contained snapshots of the computation regarding payments made by SPCL to Annai, Haigreeva, and Shalakha on the pretext of bogus contracts and the cash-back generated and returned back to SPCL.