Within hours of Reliance Industries Limited chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani meeting YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy at the latter’s Tadepalli camp office on Saturday, social media started speculating about the purpose of his sudden visit.
In fact, Jagan’s meeting with Ambani appeared to be completely impromptu and was not listed in the chief minister’s daily schedule of programmes for the day.
Except a few party leaders closer to the chief minister, nobody was aware of it till he landed in Gannavaram airport.
Moreover, Ambani had not brought any Reliance Industries officials along with him, but was accompanied by his son Anant Ambani and Rajya Sabha member Parimal Nathwani.
Since no government officials were present at the meeting of Jagan and Ambani, it must be purely a private visit and not an official one.
That led to the speculations as to what personal issue it was that made Ambani to make a surprise visit to Vijayawada to meet Jagan. After seeing Parimal Nathwani, the speculations gained some credence.
Apparently, Ambani came to meet Jagan to nominate Nathwani to the Rajya Sabha from Andhra Pradesh, after coming to know that the YSR Congress chief had offered one RS seat to Bharatiya Janata Party out of four seats that are going to fall vacant this April.
Nathwani, who has been part of the top management of Reliance, has been representing Jharkhand in Rajya Sabha in the last two terms.
Now that the BJP doesn’t have enough numbers in Jharkhand to send Nathwani to the Upper House again, it has suggested that Ambani better approach Jagan for the same.
If the speculation is true, Jagan might not refuse Ambani’s request. It is not exactly known what Ambani had offered in return, but definitely, he would come up with proposals for a big investment in Andhra!