New Delhi: The Bhartiya Janata Party’s plan to hand out tickets to the scam-tainted Reddy brothers and their close ones seems to have brought in mixed results. Out of the seven tickets that were handed out to Reddy family, only three won.
Somashekara Reddy
The youngest of the Reddy brothers, Somashekara contested from Bellary City. The businessman-turned-politician, who is currently out on bail, won by over 16,000 votes. Somashekara is accused of bribing a judge in the cash-for-bail case that also involves his brother, Janardhana Reddy.
Karunakara Reddy
The eldest among the Reddy brothers, Karunakara won by just under 10,000 votes from the Harapanahalli constituency.
B Sriramulu
A close friend of the Reddys, Sriramulu is a Lok Sabha MP from Bellary. While he lost the Badami seat to outgoing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Sriramulu won the Molakalmuru seat by a handsome margin.
TH Suresh Babu
Sriramulu’s nephew and a two-term MLA from Kampli, Babu lost by about 5,000 votes to Congress' JN Ganesh. He is accused of trying to bribe a CBI judge to get bail for Janardhana Reddy.
Sanna Fakkirappa
Sanna is Sriramulu’s uncle and a close associate of Somashekara. He lost Bellary Rural by about 3,000 votes.
Saikumar
An actor and close associate of Janardhana Reddy, Saikumar lost by a huge margin from Bagepalli to Congress' SN Subbareddy. He is known for his emceeing at various important ceremonies of the Reddys, including Janardhana’s daughter’s wedding in 2016.
Lallesh Reddy
A close relative of Janardhana Reddy and a realtor, he lost from BTM Layout constituency to Congress' Ramalinga Reddy.
Who Are The Reddys?
It was in 2010 that Siddaramaiah led the famous ‘padayathra’ to Bellary and held a massive rally against the Reddy brothers’ “mafia”. The event changed public perception and the Reddy Empire began to crumble. A year later, BS Yeddyurappa was forced to quit as the Chief Minister over the Rs 50,000 crore mining scam while the Reddys were arrested by the CBI and sent to jail. Two years later, when Siddaramaiah led the Congress to victory in Karnataka, Janardhana Reddy was cooling his heels at Chachalguda jail in Hyderabad. His empire was in shambles and Reddy was a persona non grata for the BJP.
After spending almost four years in jail as an undertrial, Janardhana Reddy managed to get bail c but the BJP was not ready to touch him. Add to it that the Siddaramaiah government sent him to jail once again in relation to other mining cases.
After a few months, he came out of jail and declared before his inner circle that it was now a personal battle between him and Siddaramaiah. He vowed to “teach him a lesson” in the next Assembly elections.
As promised, Janardhana Reddy effectively and efficiently led the BJP campaign in Karnataka.
Political analysts argue that after they realised that bringing the BJP back to power is an uphill task, the party high command reluctantly went back to the infamous Reddy brothers to achieve its goal.
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