Illegal Mining Accused Janardhana Reddy Returns To BJP

Mining baron and former Karnataka minister G. Janardhana Reddy merged his party, Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP), with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on March 25. In the presence of prominent party leaders BS Yediyurappa and state party president BY Vijayendra, Reddy and his wife Aruna Lakshmi formally rejoined the BJP after Reddy had formally quit in 2022.

Janardhanan Reddy currently serves as an MLA after winning the Gangawati assembly seat in Karnataka’s 2023 assembly polls. He had secured victory as a candidate for his KRPP party. He had previously served as a minister in the first ever BJP government in the South, led by BS Yediyurappa, before things began to unravel.

The son of a police constable, Reddy was once the state’s most influential politician and businessman, until his fall.

Reddy is unofficially credited with having started what is known as “Operation Kamal,” a term coined in 2008, wherein he worked out a way to outmanoeuvre the Anti-Defection Law and helped the saffron party past the 112-mark, creating a majority. Reddy and other senior leaders had allegedly offered political and financial power to other legislators to join the BJP. The party was elated at the results, and Reddy had marked a place for himself within it.

In 2011, a report about illegal mining activities in Karnataka’s Ballari region was published, accusing Reddy of defrauding the government. The Minister of Tourism and Infrastructure and the Minister in Charge of the Ballari district had created what is called the “Republic of Ballari,” the iron ore mafia’s rule under the sole command of Reddy. He was arrested on September 5, 2011. He sought bail from the CBI court in 2012. Following four years in jail, Reddy was granted bail in January 2015 on the condition that he stay away from Ballari district.

However, it does not end there.

A former CBI special judge, Naga Maruti Sarma, had served as a special judge for CBI cases, including the illegal mining case in 2012. In 2019, during a hearing of the case, the former judge claimed that he was offered Rs 40 crore as a bribe to grant bail to Reddy in 2012. Two judges had been suspended earlier in relation to the case. Hyderabad Special Court Judge T. Pattabhirama Rao was accused of having received bribes to secure his bail by Reddy’s family members: G Somashekhar and H Suresh Babu. Another retired judge, TV Chalapathi Rao, was also similarly accused.

“The BJP has nothing to do with Janardhana Reddy,” the then-BJP national president Amit Shah had outrightly stated ahead of the 2018 assembly polls. Not happy with the party’s treatment of him, Reddy started his own political party called Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP). Notably, Reddy’s brothers, Karunakara Reddy, Somashekhar Redddy, and Sriramulu, were still with the BJP. Sriramalu, the Scheduled Tribes leader, has been nominated as the BJP candidate from the Ballari Lok Sabha constituency.

After over a decade of being dissociated from the BJP, Reddy is back to his home party. “BJP is equivalent to our mother. I called a meeting with the KRPP workers to take their opinion and unanimously decided to join the BJP. They assured me that they’ll be with me,” said Reddy, as quoted by India Today.