Despite repeated denials by YSR Congress party president Y S Jaganmohan Reddy about his business and political links with mining baron and former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy, the ongoing campaign by the Kadapa MP for the June 12 by-elections in the state has proved that there is indeed a nexus between the two.
For the last few days, Janardhan Reddy's close aide and Bellary (rural) MLA B Sriramulu has been actively campaigning in Rayadurg assembly constituency in Anantapur district, where YSR Congress party candidate Kapu Ramachandra Reddy is contesting.
Interestingly, Ramachandra Reddy is also a director on the board of Obulapuram Mining Company owned by the Bellary mine lord which has since suspended the mining operations following the CBI inquiry into the illegal mining scandal.
Sriramulu, who had resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party and won the Bellary (rural) seat again as an independent, floated his own political outfit BSR Party which stands for: Badavara (of the poor), Shramikara (of the working class) and Raitara (of farmers) five months ago.
It may be a coincidence that his party's name closely resembles YSR Congress, in which Y stands for Yuvajana, S for Shramika and R for Rythu. And another strange coincidence is that Sriramulu had chosen "ceiling fan" as an election symbol for his party and it happens to be the election symbol of Jagan party as well.
Rayadurg, being on the borders of Bellary, has a large number of voters from Boya community to which Sriramulu belongs. Apart from Sriramulu, his family members and a large number of BSR Party leaders and cadres are campaigning for the victory of YSR Congress party in Rayadurg. While the Congress party has chosen former MLA Patil Venugopal Reddy as its candidate, the TDP has fielded Dileep Reddy as its candidate.
During his electioneering, Sriramulu said the Congress party had meted out grave injustice to Jaganmohan Reddy after the death of his father Y S Rajasekhara Reddy. "Only Jagan can bring back the golden rule of his father to the state," Sriramulu said.
Sources in the Congress party said Gali Janardhan Reddy and his brothers were also financing the candidates of YSR Congress in Kadapa and Anantapur districts.
"Everybody in the party knows that it was Janardhan Reddy who got the Congress party ticket to Kapu Ramachandra Reddy in Rayadurg because of his proximity with YSR," a senior Congress leader from Rayalaseema said.
It is an open secret that the Bellary brothers had been close associates of YSR family for several years. Janardhan Reddy originally hails from Chittoor district and is later settled in Bellary taking up iron ore business has become a business associate of Jaganmohan in the last five years.
It was during the YSR regime that the Bellary brothers had got mining leases in hundreds of acres in Anantapur, bordering Bellary. The YSR government had also granted licence to Janardhan Reddy to set up Brahmani Steels Limited at Jammalamadugu in Kadapa district and allocated 10,675 acres of land for the steel plant at a nominal rate of Rs.18,500 per acre and magnanimously allotted another 4,000 acres to construct an international standard airport near the steel plant.
The CBI has suspected that the money made through illegal mining in the OMC had been routed into Jagan's business empire through other companies.
from India Today
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