Amit Shah Cancels Karnataka Campaign Rally To Avoid Being Seen With Scam-Tainted Bellary Brothers

Weeks before the crucial state elections in Karnataka, BJP chief Amit Shah cancelled his scheduled campaign rally in Bellary district to avoid sharing the dais with tainted mining barons Reddy brothers who have been given tickets by the party, said a report by News 18. 

Shah, who is seeing Karnataka as the BJP's gateway to South, has been campaigning vigorously to remove the ruling Congress party from the state. The BJP's political strategy, however, faced severe opposition after it gave tickets to the Reddy brothers embroiled in Rs 50,000 crore illegal mining scandal. 

Two of the three infamous Reddy brothers have now been given tickets from Harapanahalli and Ballari constituencies. 

“BJP selected G. Karunakara Reddy and G. Somashekar Reddy, elder and younger brothers of the mining scam-tainted G. Janardhan Reddy, to contest from Harpanahalli and Ballari seats in the Ballari district. The party has also fielded Lallesh Reddy, nephew of the Reddy brothers,” reported NewsMinute.

Assets of Janardhana Reddy were confiscated and he was jailed for three and half years before getting bail. His daughter's Rs 500 crore extravagant wedding, days after demonetisation was announced on November 2016,  became the talk of the town, amid a massive currency crunch that other far less fortunate than him faced for months on end. 

At the height of their influence, the Reddy troika -- two of whom were ministers and the third Somashekara Reddy the chairman of the Karnataka Milk Federation --were often accused of running the BJP government, before their clout waned.

So complete was the sway of their mining cartel's stranglehold on the region's politics that it had prompted the then Lokayukta Santosh Hegde to refer to the then Bellary (now Ballari) district as "the Republic of Bellary".

Though the most resourceful of them--G Janardhana Reddy-- has been barred from entering Ballari, in accordance with his bail conditions in the illegal mining case, he is camping near Molakalmuru in Chitradurga district overseeing the campaign of his siblings as also the BJP, which is making a determined effort to form its government in the key southern state for a second time.