Bengaluru: The last time a wedding was spoken of so much was probably in 1995 when V N Sudhakaran, the adopted son of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, tied the knot one September morning.
This time, it’s mining baron G Janardhana Reddy who seems to be competing on the bigger-greater-grander quotient – and his daughter’s wedding is easily ten times in scale and extravagance, with Bengaluru seeing a mindless display of opulence in the last few days. Guesstimates put the overall cost at anywhere between 100 crores to 500 crores. Nobody knows how much is actually being spent.
The nine-day long extravaganza began with pujas and yagnas, and has so far seen sangeet ceremonies, especially choreographed song-and-dance sequences, with the bride and the groom.
The actual mahurat is on Wednesday, November 16, and is likely to draw at least 20,000 invitees to the venue, the Bengaluru Palace Grounds.
All this is set in a huge replica of the erstwhile Vijayanagar empire’s monuments – a heritage temple in Reddy’s hometown Ballari district, where he allegedly ruled over the mining activities between 2007 and 2011.
At the time, Reddy was an MLC and a Minister in the BJP government headed by current party president B S Yeddyurappa.
Today, Gali Janardhana Reddy is an accused in the estimated Rs-3000-crore illegal mining scam, facing trial in a CBI court. He spent about three years in jail and has been on bail since January 2015.
Separately, he has also been under investigation for allegedly trying to bribe a judge in Telangana to get bail in some of his earlier cases.
Actor Saikumar Pudipeddi is overseeing the entertainment and arrangements. And you can’t miss the heavy, almost royal, jewellery that everyone is sporting.
No one is under any illusion that the Income Tax department hasn’t seen this. Department officials confirm they have been watching the spend since November 8, when the first pujas began, and will continue to do so till November 19, when the elaborate ceremonies are likely to end.
One social activist has even filed a complaint with the IT department on Tuesday – “Such a huge expenditure could not have been done with legally earned money. Hence detailed investigation is needed in this connection by the department,” says T Narasimha Murthy, in his complaint.
“When people standing in long queues for exchange of their currency… the income tax officials are raiding the place of only small and common people. But ignoring the virtual palace constructed for this marriage,” read excerpts from his complaint to the DG, Income Tax (Investigations).
This comes in the peak wedding season when many commoners have had to postpone weddings, or minimise decor and wedding essentials, because of a currency crunch. The Reddy family do has not even faltered one step.
In the face of such lavish indulgence, many of the VVIPs invited to the wedding are keeping a safe distance. Reddy had personally invited chief minister Siddaramaiah, who will not be going. Others like former PM Deve Gowda made it a point to go to New Delhi on Tuesday itself, a day ahead of the Parliament session.
Worried after the outrage that the wedding has caused on social media and outside of it, state BJP leaders are fighting shy of the mega-event too. Though it was initially reported that the party has asked its leaders to stay away from the wedding, spokespersons said ‘there is no such diktat.’
“How can the party give such instructions? There is no question of that. People who have got invitations can decide on their own if they want to go or not,” said a spokesperson. Also Read: Yedyurappa Shows Up at Reddy Mega Wedding Venue, Likely to Skip Main Ceremony
Opposition leader in the Assembly Jagdish Shettar says he will go.
“He came for my son’s wedding. He has called me, it’s on a personal note, so I will go,” he says. BJP MP from Ballari, Sriramulu, Reddy’s closest aide over the past decade, has been at the forefront of all preparations.
The Reddy family has always been known to live it up, with reports of seizure of huge quantities of gold as well as private helicopters from his Ballari home during the CBI investigation.
When Jaya had reportedly pulled out all stops 20 years ago at her now-estranged son’s wedding, she faced a slew of cases, including a disproportionate assets case for which a trial went on for 18 years.
With Reddy’s affluence on display now, Murthy asks the one question on everyone’s mind now, “Since Mr Reddy was in jail for 40 months, it is vital to know the source of income for this kind of extravagant marriage.”
In other words: just how much has gone into this and where did he get it from?
The proverbial sleepless nights that the rich are supposed to suffer from post-demonetisation seem to have evaded the exotic nights at play in Bengaluru’s Palace Grounds.
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