In a bid to stay connected with voters of Ballari district and also actively participate in the coming elections, G. Janardhan Reddy, former BJP Minister and mining baron, has decided to stay put on the inter-district border of Ballari and Chitradurga.
Mr. Reddy, who is facing the charge of illegal mining and had been jailed too, has been out on conditional bail issued by the Supreme Court. He has been barred from entering Ballari district and also Kadapa and Anantapur districts of neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
According to sources, Mr. Reddy’s followers have gone around in Molakalmur taluk of Chitradurga in search of suitable places, including a farmhouse near Thammenahalli, adjacent to the Bidar-Ballari-Srirangapatna State Highway, for his stay till the elections are over. The farmhouse is likely to be finalised soon.
Earlier victory
It may be mentioned here that Mr. Reddy, when at the helm of affairs as an MLC and a powerful leader in the BJP in the district and also at the State-level, had swept the 2008 Assembly elections by ensuring the victory of eight out of the total nine Assembly seats in the district.
But in the following election (2013), the BJP’s performance was very poor when it was able to retain only one out of the total eight seats it had held earlier.
The reason was that Mr. Reddy had been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the charge of illegal mining on the one hand and his close associate B. Sriramulu of the BJP, in protest, set up a political outfit of his own (BSR Congress), on the other.
However, Mr. Sriramulu and his nephew, T.H. Suresh Babu, had retained their seats and another of their close associate, B. Nagendra, had won independently.
Now, Mr. Sriramulu and his followers have come back to the BJP and the responsibility is more on Mr. Sriramulu to win as many as seats as possible in the district.
Active role
Mr. Reddy is now planning an active role for himself in the coming elections while extending support to his friend Mr. Sriramulu, especially after two of his trusted aides, B.S. Anand Singh, who represented Vijayanagar, and B. Nagendra, who represents Kudligi, joined the Congress.
Surprisingly, Mr. Reddy’s decision seems to be of his own as the BJP has so far maintained a distance from him.
Will Mr. Reddy be able to exercise command over the voters again as he did in 2008 remains to be seen.
