By V.S. Karnic, IANS,
Bangalore: An unwanted bypoll engineered by the billionaire Reddy brothers in their stronghold Bellary has forced the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka to learn the bitter lesson that bending to financial muscle is not a paying proposition for a political party.
Still, the BJP has not given any indication that it will clean up its stables, though it has for the last three weeks been regretting in public for dancing to the Reddy brothers’ tunes in the last three years.
The BJP is now acknowledging that it made the mistake of leaving Bellary’s administration to the Reddys and their associates as the district remains backward while the Reddys minted billions from mining iron ore and exporting it.
The Reddys ran a ‘goonda raj’ (thugs’ reign) in Bellary all these years, the BJP says these days.
Credit for leaving the BJP with little option but to come out with the “truth” about the Reddys goes, ironically, to the three brothers – Gali Janardhana, Gali Karunakara and Gali Somashekara.
Whether the BJP will go for a clean break with the Reddys or start appeasing them again will be known Dec 4 when the result of the by-election to the Bellary rural assembly seat, held Nov 30, becomes known.
Bellary, the iron ore-rich district, is about 300 km north of Bangalore. The Reddys, sons of a police constable in Andhra Pradesh, joined the BJP in 1999 and entered the mining business in 2005 and went on to become the owners of choppers and foreign-made cars.
The brothers have propped up their associates and former minister B. Sriramulu as an independent after making him resign from the BJP and the seat he won in the May 2008 assembly elections.
The BJP tried in vain to persuade Sriramulu to contest as its candidate. Since it did not agree to his conditions, one of which was said to be a promise to make him a minister again, Sriramulu resigned Nov 9.
Now, he is talking of floating a new party and is waiting for Janardhana Reddy to come out of Hyderabad’s Chanchalaguda jail to finalise the details.
Janardhana, who was tourism minister in the BJP’s first government under scam-hit B.S. Yeddyurappa, has been lodged in the jail since Sep 5 in connection with the illegal mining case in Andhra Pradesh.
The BJP is confident that its candidate, Bellary businessman P. Gadilingappa, contesting for the assembly for the first time, will win.
The tune will definitely change in favour of the Reddys if Sriramulu wins because the party has suspended only Somashekara Reddy though it is known that it is Janardhana Reddy who is orchestrating the show from his Chanchalaguda cell.
Karunaraka Reddy has not been seen in public since mid-September and it is not known whether he is actually backing Sriramulu.
The Reddys are proving to be pretty smart in keeping the BJP on tenterhooks and keeping all options open.
Sriramulu claims that several BJP legislators are supporting him and he can bring down the D.V. Sadananda Gowda government if he asks them to quit the party. He also claims these legislators will join the new party.
At the same time, he mouths that he will not bring down the Gowda government, giving a clear indication to the party that he and his mentors are still are part of it, that all of them can again chorus ‘all is well’, provided there is enough give-and-take.
The biggest loser of this dreadful scenario is clean politics in Karnataka and, possibly, a severe dent in the BJP’s image across India.
(V.S. Karnic can be contacted at [email protected])