In Ballari’s battle of billionaires, all eyes on mining baron’s new party

In the mining town of Karnataka’s Ballari, Congress leader Nara Bharat Reddy had tried to take first-mover advantage by launching his campaign months ahead of the state assembly elections, going door to door, promising a politics “without corruption” in the Bellary City segment.

The constituency, after all, saw G Janardhan Reddy, a mining baron and the brother of the sitting MLA G Somashekara Reddy, being exiled from Ballari by no other than the Supreme Court last year over a slew of CBI cases. The cases came after the Karnataka Lokayukta exposed Janardhan Reddy’s alleged role in a mining racket, helping the Congress win the seat in the 2013 elections. 

Somashekara Reddy won the segment back in 2018 and has been eyeing another term this time despite anti-incumbency. However, the poll prospects of both Bharath as well as Somashekara have now been dented by the entry of Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha – a new party floated by Janardhan Reddy with his wife Aruna Laxmi in the fray. Laxmi’s campaign, under the party’s poll symbol football, has been stitched around former BJP minister Janardhan’s legacy of “development”.

“In the campaign, we are reminding people what Janardhan Reddy has done for the people of Ballari in the past. In the last 12 years, when he was not around, no development took place in the constituency. It was Janardhan who constructed roads, hospitals and water lines during his 20 months as a minister,” said Sunil, the KRPP’s campaign manager in Bellary City.

The constituency has around 22 percent voters from the Lingayat community, 25 percent Muslim voters, and 15 percent each from the SC and ST communities. 

“Football has started to fulfill its promises in advance. Within a month, they got a new road built outside the qabristaan in this area. Janardhan Reddy enjoys a massive fan following amongst Muslim voters. Moreover, he also promised us that after the elections he will not join the BJP, otherwise all of us would be disappointed,” said Rehman, a voter in Bellary City.

The Ballari belt has remained Janardhan Reddy’s political backyard, with the mining baron propping up relatives and aides over the years in various elections to hold political power. With the BJP leadership distancing itself from him, he eventually formed the KRPP in December last year. And the decision to field his wife in Bellary City, many say, stems from a desire to control the politics of the region where he is exiled from.

Facing a tough challenge, Somashekara has been telling the media that there was no need for his brother to form a new party and that he tried to mediate between the BJP leadership and his brother, whose party has floated 12 candidates.

But before a political battle within the Reddy family for the Bellary City seat, there were signs of disgruntlement within the Congress’s state unit too, with several party leaders threatening to quit after sensing chances of Bharath’s candidature.

Bharath, the 32-year-old son of Congress veteran and granite businessman Suryanarayan Reddy, has declared assets worth over Rs 120 crore. His candidature, Congress sources claimed, is a result of Suryanarayan Reddy’s wish to exercise the same political influence in Ballari as Janardhan Reddy.

“Bharat emerged as a strong candidate and enjoys popularity among all communities…in this election, issues such as price rise and communalism are also going against Somashekara Reddy…he (Bharath Reddy) is going far and beyond what the Congress’ promises in the manifesto, that’s why he has been able to carve out an image for himself,” said Mrinal, a voter from Bellary City.

The fight for Bellary (ST)

Notably, the KRPP has not floated a candidate in the adjoining Bellary seat reserved for the ST community, triggering speculation about who Janardhan Reddy will rally behind in this election.

The key candidates are BJP’s sitting MP B Sreeramulu and Congress’s incumbent MLA B Nagendra – both are friends of Janardhan Reddy since their early days in politics. 

“We will not comment on why Janardhan has taken this decision. You will get to know that on the result day. Since both are our friends, we are not commenting,” said Sunil.

On the party’s decision to float Janardhan’s wife against his brother, Sunil said it was because Somashekara and Sreemulu refused his offer to leave the BJP and join him. “Janardhan has made all these people MLAs and ministers. Nobody even knew their faces and now suddenly they feel that they don’t need his support. This has hurt him. They were not leaving BJP to support him. That’s why he has made his wife contest from Bellary City.”

A shared history

For nearly two decades, Ballari has been considered Janardhan Reddy’s turf in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region – a district home to 25 percent of the country’s iron resources. Around 1994, after the state government introduced new mining policies and opened the doors for private players, Janardhan Reddy along with his two elder brothers – G Karunakara Reddy and  G Somashekara Reddy – entered the business with their small mining company. The business boomed as Ballari turned into a hub for iron ore extraction and the Reddys fed Chinese demand for the element to match infrastructural needs of the 2008 Olympics.

From the early 2000s, the Reddys threw themselves into electoral politics. In 2004, Janardhan Reddy won his first assembly election from the undivided Bellary constituency on a BJP ticket and in 2008, his elder brothers Karunakara and Somashekara made political debuts in the Harpanhhal and Bellary City segments, respectively, on BJP tickets. 

But it wasn’t just the family. Janardhan Reddy is known to have established the political careers of his close associates. 

One of them is BJP MP Sreeramulu, with whom Janardhan’s friendship began in 1999, when the former began working for BJP leader Sushma Swaraj’s campaign. Ties with Janardhan helped Sreeramulu, whose father worked as a milkman and who hails from the ST community, gain influence within the community. And, over the years, Sreeramulu climbed the political ladder in the BJP and became the party’s main ST face, giving a tough fight to former CM Siddaramiah in Badami segment in 2018. As per his poll affidavit, he has four criminal cases against him and is the owner of assets and liabilities around Rs 80 crore. 

B Nagendra is also from a modest ST family, a close aide to Janardhan Reddy and a big supporter of Sreeramulu. “Sreeramulu has been my friend, not my competitor. Until I joined the Congress, I was handling his campaigning. Today, it is our destiny that we are competing against each other,” said Nagendra. 

The CBI had arrested him in 2013, along with Janardhan and two other MLAs, alleging that his firm Eagle Logistics stole iron ore in Ballari and exported it through the Belekeri port. As per his poll affidavit, Nagendra has 42 criminal cases against him and has assets and liabilities worth Rs 20 crores. 

But in the fight between “friends”, it remains unclear which party will benefit from the absence of a KRPP candidate in Bellary (ST) segment.

B Nagendra said, “Currently, since Janardhan is not on good terms with B Sreeramulu, his decision is going to help the Congress. If KRPP contested from here, it would have split the Muslim voters, which is our main vote bank.”

In the Bellary (ST) constituency, 20 percent voters are from the Muslim community, 25 percent from the Scheduled Castes, and 20 percent from ST groups. 

Though the odds seem stacked against him over local concerns about price rise, Sreeramulu is set to throw a tough challenge –  he has won thrice from this constituency, in 2008, 2011 and 2013. 

Additionally, several voters from the ST community said they have been told by BJP workers that Janardhan Reddy and Sreemulu are on the same page. “They both are eyes and ears of Ballari. Janardhan Reddy has fulfilled his friendship by not fielding a candidate from this constituency,” said a voter.

In January, Sreeramulu’s social media handle tweeted an appeal to attend a public meeting held by KRPP. The tweet was retracted and the BJP leader had claimed that his account was hacked. 

Sreeramulu refused to comment on KRPP’s decision to not field a candidate.

The role of money

Voters in Ballari are not new to the idea of the role of money and muscle in the area’s politics. 

Most voters Newslaundry spoke to claimed that money is being offered to voters ahead of May 10, when the state’s 224 constituencies go to elections.

In Bellary (ST) constituency, voters alleged the amount was the same for all the candidates as of now but may increase as the election day approaches. In Bellary City, voters pointed to an amount “thrice” the sum being allegedly offered in Bellary (ST) due to “richer candidates”.

“Like 30 years ago, when the Reddy brothers had not entered politics, the Congress also used to distribute money. But only to the poorest voters. But when Reddy brothers started contesting elections, they made distribution of money a common practice. Money even made its way into the houses of even the middle class voters…now it has become a common practice amongst all contesting parties,” said a Ballari-based journalist with three decades of experience.

In 2014, authorities had installed several CCTV cameras across Ballari to monitor electoral malpractices during the campaign.

Activists involved in a petition – filed by environmentalist SR Hiremath in 2009 against illegal mining based on Lokayukta reports against the Reddy brothers – told Newslaundry that the common thread between all the candidates who are competing to win these two constituencies is that “they first got involved into the business of mining and natural resources and later into politics”. “Their common interest is not people, but to exert influence in the land of natural resources.”

With inputs from Khalid Karnataki.