Two years ago, during the Karnataka legislature’s Winter Session, BJP MLA and former minister Janardhan Reddy was involved in a heated exchange with first-time MLA Nara Bharath Reddy. Although the spat lasted only a few minutes, the way the two attacked each other revealed the hostility with which they viewed each other.
On the evening of January 1, the supporters of the BJP MLA from Gangawati and Bharath Reddy, the Ballari City MLA — both of whom belong to prominent political families — clashed after the former opposed the installation of a banner carrying the Congress legislator’s photo near his palatial home. The banner was for a January 3 event on the inauguration of a Valmiki statue. As the altercation between the two sides intensified, the police fired eight rounds, in which a Congress worker, identified as Rajashekar, died.
Blaming the BJP leader and mining baron, Bharath Reddy sought his arrest, alleging it was orchestrated to stop the statue from being unveiled. “I am only silent because I want peace. Or else, I would have set his house on fire,” said the Congress MLA.
Janardhan Reddy, in turn, accused the Congress MLA, his father and former MLA Suryanarayana Reddy, and uncle Pratap Reddy of orchestrating the violence. “We tried to advise them against tying the banner. Even after the police and (BJP leader and former minister) Sriramulu asked them not to, they did not listen … If you think you can do rowdy-ism in front of my house and scare BJP workers, such games will not work.”
The banner was for a January 3 event on the inauguration of a Valmiki statue. (Photo: Screengrab from PTI Video on X)
The BJP MLA alleged a bid to assassinate him and, in a letter to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, sought Z-category security.
The Congress government ordered an inquiry into the incident on Friday and suspended Ballari SP Pavan Nejjur, who was posted in the district 24 hours earlier. On Sunday, state Home Minister G Parameshwara said the government was considering handing over the cases related to the clash to the Crime Investigation Department. The complaints and counter-complaints filed by the two sides have resulted in four FIRs in which the two MLAs and Sriramulu are among those named.
The minister said preliminary reports showed the bullet that killed the Congress worker was fired from a private revolver and not the police. The forensic analysis of the bullet was going on and, as per the initial findings, did not match any police ammunition, he said.
The row has fuelled tensions between the Congress and the BJP, with Deputy CM and state Congress president D K Shivakumar alleging that Ballari was peaceful until Janardhan Reddy’s return.
“There was no violence until Janardhan Reddy was allowed into Ballari. He doesn’t have the right to talk about the violence. Our party will stand behind our MLA,” he said on Saturday while announcing that a committee under party leader H M Revanna will submit a report on the incident. Shivakumar said Janardhan Reddy and Sriramulu were “trying to bring back the ‘Republic of Ballari’ once again” and that the Congress would not allow that.
“Our CM has given clear instructions on that. We have confiscated private guns in Ballari in view of this incident. We will formulate new regulations for gun ownership,” Shivakumar said.
Leader of Opposition R Ashok who visited the city on Sunday termed the incident a conspiracy against Janardhan Reddy. Taking a dig at the government, he said, “You (Congress) had called it Ballari Republic. Now, you have turned it into a republic of bullets.” The BJP leader said the party does not trust the Karnataka Police or the CID and demanded either a judicial enquiry or a CBI probe. “We will write to the Governor about the issue,” he added.
In the two-and-a-half decades since the influence of the Janata Dal steadily waned in the Kalyana Karnataka region, of which Ballari is a part, the BJP and the Congress have been vying for its control. In two of those decades, the political landscape in resource-rich Ballari and its neighbouring areas has been dominated by Janardhan Reddy and his brothers.
The Reddy brothers first rose to prominence after working for Sushma Swaraj, the BJP candidate from Ballari in the 1999 Lok Sabha poll against then Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The money power of Janardhan Reddy as a mining baron and the popularity of Sriramulu, an ST leader, were key factors in the BJP’s success in the Ballari, Raichur and Koppal districts in north Karnataka from 2004 to 2011, before an illegal mining scam brought down the Reddy mining empire.
Though Reddy, who was imprisoned for nearly a year after his arrest in 2011, was barred from entering the Ballari region on the orders of the Supreme Court till about October 2024, he continued to exert considerable influence in Ballari through his brothers. But despite his win from Gangawati in the 2023 polls on a ticket of his outfit Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha, his dominance faced resistance as Bharath Reddy bagged Ballari City and the Congress swept all five constituencies in the mineral-rich district. To regain his foothold in the region, he merged his party with the BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, 13 years after he was expelled following his arrest in the illegal mining scam.
Curated by Aisha Patel
