Puttaparthi, April 24: With doctors treating Sathya Sai Baba throwing broad hints late in the week that the end is nigh for the spiritual leader, the coterie surrounding him stepped up their behind-the-scenes battle for control of the Sathya Sai Central Trust which is said to wield enormous power and own properties and monies deployed round the world. With Sai Baba’s nephew, RJ Ratnakar, and the other members of the trust vying for control, the Baba’s favourite disciple, Satyajit, is said to have been chosen to head the trust in the case of the Baba’s death, as part of a temporary arrangement. He will wield joint cheque-signing powers along with Ratnakar.
While the power play goes on in the cloisters of Prashanti Nilayam, Puttaparthi has turned into garrison town with some 5,000 policemen drafted to keep the peace should death come to the spiritual leader.
Anxiety levels among devotees are soaring as they see crews erect huge video screens all over town, clear up the brush at helipads and frisk anyone coming into town: all pointers to an inrush of VIPs in the days to come. With doctors airing their anxieties that Sai Baba’s organs are not responding, or responding minimally, to treatment, people here are putting two and two together.
Meanwhile, the interplay between the cabals in the cash-rich Trust has put the 33-year-old Satyajit in the eye of the storm. He is a product of the ashram, having lived there since the age of five, going on to top the MBA programme at the Satya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, and then giving up aspirations to a corporate life for a life in service of Sai Baba. Since 2003 he has been the Baba’s personal caregiver.
The chosen one is said to be propped up in the tussle by Chennai industrialist V Srinivasan and influential Trust member and former IAS officer M Chakravarthy. As per the temporary truce, Satyajit and Ratnakar will act in accordance with the decisions of the Trust.
Sources said Sathya Sai Baba was inclined towards Satyajit rather than his nephew Ratnakar due to opposition to the latter from some of his own family members and also from a majority of the Trust members. Of the five Trust members, Sathya Sai Baba reportedly preferred Satyajit as he is the youngest and well aware of the activities of the Trust.
Satyajit’s clout with Sathya Sai Baba, however, is reportedly not to the liking of Ratnakar who wants the Trust to be in the hands of the Baba’s family in the future scenario. Though some of the family members would love this too, they are against Ratnakar.
They have their reasons. “Ratnakar and his father, Janaki Ramaiah, never allowed the other family members to get close to Sathya Sai Baba. Though it was initially Janaki Ramaiah who distanced the other family members from Sathya Sai Baba, it was continued by Ratnakar after his father’s death,’’ sources in the family said.
According to sources, Ratnakar’s efforts are being assisted by former MP and liquor baron DK Adikesavulu Naidu who has trained his guns on Satyajit, alleging misappropriation of Trust funds and allowing Sathya Sai Baba’s health to deteriorate.
The Ratnakar faction alleges that Satyajit was aware of the deteriorating health of Sai Baba and did very little to give him proper treatment and even kept it a secret from other Trust members.
Sources said AP industries minister J Geetha Reddy, a Sai diehard who has been in the thick of things since Sai Baba was admitted to hospital on March 28, is also favourable to Ratnakar.
Geetha Reddy and Adikesavulu Naidu’s interest in the Trust activities and their reported support to Ratnakar has its own reason. The duo, sources claim, are trying to take over the trust-run hospital at Whitefield in Bangalore.
Trust members, on the other hand, are vehemently against Ratnakar, chiefly Chakravarthy, and hence the move to prop up Satyajit to head the trust.
The Central Trust members include PN Bhagwati, a former Supreme Court chief justice; Indulal Shah, a Mumbai-based chartered accountant and founder of the Sathya Sai Central Trust; V Srinivasan, a Chennai-based industrialist; SV Giri, former central vigilance commissioner (CVC); and RJ Ratnakar.
With events getting murkier in the last few days, ardent Sai devotees have kept their distance from the goings on.
The air in Puttaparthi is thick with whispers of the alleged spiriting away of 32 suitcases containing gold biscuits from Prasanthi Nilayam. The suitcases were reportedly in transit to Chennai when officials at Devanahalli in Karnataka intercepted them.
They, however, let them off after they came to know that the consignment belonged to the Sathya Sai Trust.
With such incidents being talked about, devotees are wondering whether large-scale diversion of funds and properties has already taken place since Satya Sai Baba took ill.
With such rumours rife, AP director-general of police K Aravinda Rao has asked the Anantapur police to tighten vigil and register cases if anyone is found shifting Trust property from Puttaparthi.
According to sources, checkposts were expressly erected on the roads going out of Puttaparthy to curb any transfer of properties.
Meanwhile, sources in the police said they suspect the possibility of arson in Puttaparthi in case of the announcement of bad news.
“There are two groups in the Trust and it is possible that they will resort to violence to tarnish the other’s image,’’ a police officer said.
–Agencies–