HYDERABAD: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu's son, N Lokesh's personal assets have seen to be drastically increased from £1.45 million in October 2016, to over £33 million by the end of February. The 34 year old has filed an affidavit declaring his and his family's assets to the Election Commission when he filed his nomination to contest for a berth in the Legislative Council.
Lokesh, in the affidavit, declared £27.38 million as movable assets in the form of shares in the family-owned Heritage Foods Ltd. Earlier promoted by Naidu's family, it was partially sold off to Future Retail Ltd., led by Kishore Biyani, on November 8, last year. He was the executive director. Lokesh also declared immovable assets worth £1.8 million, inheritance worth £3.85 million, and liabilities of £628,000, totalling around £33 million.
His wife Brahmani owns assets worth £538,000 while his one year old son Devansh is worth £ 1.12 million, including an inherited house valued at £917,000, and £200,000 in fixed deposits. Lokesh said he did not acquire assets in the last five months. "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 £27.38 million."
He also added, "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."
