After forced to quit his home district of Ballari and seek political pastures in Kalghatagi in Dharwad district, Santosh Lad, Minister for Labour, is back on his home turf as the Minister in-charge of the district.
Hailing from the Lad family, who are into mining business for over five decades in Sandur, Mr. Santosh, the nephew of the former MLA, Hiroji Lad, was a member of Sandur Town Panchayat.
To fulfil his political ambition of becoming an MLA, he began nurturing his constituency and succeeded in gaining entry into the Assembly in 2004 on Janata Dal ticket. To his luck, M.Y. Ghorpade, senior Congressman, who represented Sandur for many terms, retired from active politics in 2004.
But in 2008, after the delimitation of constituencies, Sandur was reserved for Scheduled Tribes and Mr. Santosh, who had then joined the Congress, had no chance of contesting the polls. He chose to contest from Kalghatagi and has been representing it since then. Though he got a berth in the Siddaramaiah Cabinet in 2013, he had to quit within six months of assuming office owing to allegations against him of indulging in illegal mining.
Now, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, during the recent Cabinet reshuffle, has provided him a ministerial berth of Cabinet rank besides making him in-charge of the district.
Speaking to The Hindu over phone, Mr. Lad expressed his happiness over being appointed as the district in-charge Minister.
“I will hold a preliminary round of meeting with officials Sunday. I will frequently visit the district to review the progress of development works,” he said.
