Roses, posters, prayers for jailed Satyam chief Raju

HYDERABAD: Contemplating his fate from a prison cell, his reputation shattered, Ramalinga Raju, the founder of India's Satyam Computer Services, can still rely on supporters to whom he will always be a hero.

Across Hyderabad, home to Satyam, prayers are being said for Raju, the man who plunged the firm into crisis by revealing a fraud which is India's biggest corporate scandal.

"He was good at computers, bad at construction. He was not able to manage finance properly. You can't be good at everything," argued one Raju supporter, a college lecturer who asked not to be named. Outside the jail where Raju is being held pending charges, supporters drop by to ask about him even as a probe into the fraud widens. "Dear Sri Ramalinga Raju. We are with you. Please don't loose (sic) confidence. Wishing you a happy pongal," read one poster outside the city's Chanchalguda jail on Wednesday.

A big pink rose was left by someone named "Nagaraj". Pongal, a Hindu harvest festival, was celebrated in south India on Wednesday. Satyam, which means truth in Sanskrit, has been battling for survival since Raju resigned as chairman last week, saying profits had been falsified for years and $1 billion of cash and bank balances did not exist. The revelations have cast a pall over India's much-cherished software sector and had commentators lamenting a shameful lapse in corporate governance by one of the industry's favoured sons. The fate of Satyam's 53,000 employees hangs in the balance, with statements from government officials on Thursday that there were no plans for a bailout adding to the gloom.

"But look at the way he built Satyam, created jobs. I don't think he has done anything wrong," the lecturer said, adding he had debated the matter with his wife and decided to use the holiday to show his support for Raju.

NO COCKFIGHTS, GAMBLING

A crowd of reporters and curious onlookers gathers outside the jail everyday for updates on its famous inmate, with guards sometimes bringing bits of news, including the celebration of Pongal with 'laddoos', a ball-shaped sweet.

"We sent him some," said Krishnamurthy, a guard. But in Raju's ancestral village Garagaparru, about 400 km from Hyderabad, there were few festivities, with the traditional cockfight and card games nowhere to be seen, reported the Hindustan Times paper.

Instead, villagers printed large posters of support featuring pictures of Raju and his brother, Satyam's managing director, who has also been arrested over the fraud, the paper said. Others in Hyderabad were less forgiving.

"He was like god," said Vijay Kumar, who runs a travel agency in the city. "He was the face of Andhra Pradesh. But after all this, he has lost that."