New Delhi: Construction firm Chennai Green Woods Private Limited donated Rs 105 crore through electoral bonds. The little known company, incorporated in June 2023, has a paid-up capital – money raised through shareholders – of Rs 43.74 crore and operates out of Ramky Towers in Hyderabad.
Ramky Towers is the official address of the Ramky group, a Hyderabad based real estate and infrastructure development company.
The group was founded by Alla Ayodhya Rami Reddy, a businessman-politician from Guntur and a member of Andhra Pradesh’s ruling YSR Congress Party. He was sent to the Rajya Sabha in 2020 by the YSR Congress Party.
Reddy is the chairman of the group but is not listed as a director. The company’s directors are Rajesh Taraka Dasari and Anil Babu Kolli, both of whom are directors in multiple Ramky group affiliated companies.
In July 2021, Income Tax investigators reportedly raided 15 properties of the Ramky group, including its Hyderabad headquarters. The probe was on alleged tax evasion by fabricating losses of Rs 1200 crore by the group.
From the same financial year the company began donating to political parties through electoral bonds. In January 2022, it donated Rs 40 crores in January 2022. It gave away Rs 50 crore in April 2022, and yet another Rs 15 crore in October 2023. These donations came preceding the state assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Manipur.
Though this is not the only time the company has come under scrutiny by government agencies. It has been investigated by multiple central agencies over the years. In 2013, with the UPA government at the centre, the Ramky group came under the radar in a disproportionate assets case against the Andhra Pradesh CM Jagan Mohan Reddy. The Enforcement Directorate had attached Rs 135 crore worth of assets of the group during that probe.
Jagan Mohan Reddy was earlier a Member of Parliament of Indian National Congress. He had a bitter split from the Congress in November 2010, after which the YSR Congress was founded in March 2011.
