Ballari: A bout of overnight rain and the roads turn to sludge around the bypass leading to Karnataka’s Ballari. The city itself is peppered with open drains and stagnant pools, but clean water supply is limited to just a few times each month. Yet, despite lacking basic amenities, Ballari is synonymous with big mining money, and never is it more visible than when poll time rolls around.
Not so long ago, Lamborghinis and even a Rolls Royce Phantom raced on these dusty streets, and private helicopters could often be seen buzzing about overhead. The Lamborghinis and choppers are gone now, some seized by investigation agencies when they cracked down on the powerful Reddy brothers — Janardhana, Somashekara, and Karunakara — for their alleged illegal activities about a decade ago.
But the barons are still political heavyweights, even if they seem to prefer discreet Range Rovers to race cars these days. And with Karnataka going to polls on 10 May, the battle in Ballari (Bellary until November 2014) is still centred on mining bigwigs and money power.
The four main contenders for the Ballari City assembly seat are all crorepatis many times over, with their fortunes coming from mining in the region.
Contesting on the ticket of the Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP) is Aruna Lakshmi, a homemaker for much of her adult life. She is the wife of iron-ore mining tycoon and former state BJP minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, who floated the party last December, reportedly disgruntled with the BJP. He is contesting from Gangavathi constituency in Koppal since his bail conditions from 2015 have practically banished him from Ballari.
The BJP candidate is Ballari City’s sitting MLA Somashekara Reddy, Janardhana’s brother and Aruna Lakshmi’s brother-in-law, while the Congress is fielding Nara Bharath Reddy, a 32-year-old granite magnate and the son of former MLA Suryanarayan Reddy. The JD(S) contestant is Anil Lad, another iron-ore tycoon, who jumped ship from the Congress when the party gave the Ballari City ticket to Bharath.
All four candidates put together are worth close to Rs 800 crore (Rs 8 billion), according to their election affidavits.
The richest of the lot by this count is Anil Lad, who has claimed that he and his wife have assets totalling Rs 383 crore, and over Rs 37 crore in liabilities. Next in line is
Aruna Lakshmi, who has disclosed assets worth Rs 250 crore, including 84 kg of diamonds and 437 kg of silver, and no liabilities.
Nara Bharat Reddy has total declared assets exceeding Rs 90 crore, close to becoming a rupee billionaire, while Somashekara Reddy has declared assets worth Rs 66 crore.
When ThePrint caught up with Bharath on the sidelines of a press conference in Ballari this week, he was wearing a simple khadi kurta and chappals that did not look like Birkenstocks. He laughed when asked about Ballari’s battle of the ‘billionaires’.
“We worked hard for it,” he said. “God has been kind to us. And if he has been kind, we should share what we have.”
BJP’s Somashekara Reddy was grabbing a quick breakfast of uttapam and filter coffee at a BJP worker’s house in Ballari when ThePrint asked him the same question. “I’m a billionaire of the people,” he said.
Both hinted at something that is widely acknowledged in Ballari City — ‘generosity’ goes a longer way towards winning votes than almost anything else in the constituency, where mining wealth has for decades shaped politics and local expectations.
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80,000 cookers, saris, & ‘flowery’ politics in Ballari
The staggering Rs 800-crore net worth of the four election candidates doesn’t surprise anyone in Ballari. It is widely accepted here that money plays the most significant role in the political landscape, surpassing even caste, religion, and governance.
Here, locals say “kanakambaram” and “khakhra“, the names of two flowers standing for Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes respectively, talk louder than the BJP’s lotus or the Congress’s hand.
This trend has persisted since the heydays of Janardhana Reddy, whose utter control over the region led to the coining of the term “Republic of Bellary/Ballari” for the mineral-rich district in the impoverished Kalyana Karnataka region.
While Ballari has the eleventh-highest per capita income in the state (Rs 21,7096), according to the 2022-2023 Karnataka Economic Survey, political experts from the area say that the bulk of this wealth is concentrated in the hands of a select few. But they tend to show their largesse during elections.
This year, Bharath Reddy was in the news for distributing 80,000 cookers to households in the city. Aruna Lakshmi tried to compete by distributing silk sarees, but sources from the KRPP told ThePrint she could only give out 25,000 before the Model Code of Conduct kicked in.
“My wife and sister told me that Aruna Lakshmi’s sarees were really nice. They asked me to put in a word so that they could also get one,” laughed a local journalist in Ballari city.
According to Shivakumar Malagi, a political analyst from Ballari, the district’s moneyed political landscape can be traced back to the 2004 elections, when “minelords” began making the transition into politics.
“It was not the Reddy brothers, but the Lad brothers — Santosh and Anil Lad — who brought this culture into Ballari,” Malagi notes. “If you see now, the same mining families are in the political arena.”
Despite the civic issues faced by the city, Malagi believes that the people of Ballari have grown accustomed to receiving money or goods in exchange for their votes.
“The people of Ballari are very kind,” he says. “For example, if there are five members in one family, then they will divide the votes in such a manner that the candidate who’s given the most money gets two or three votes, and the others get one vote each.”
Malagi predicts that “all the money will come out between 8 and 10 May when campaigning is over”.
Numerous sources working with the candidates tell ThePrint they are spending a minimum of Rs 100 crore each in these elections.
Meanwhile, Ballari’s wait for basic facilities continues. According to the 2011 census, nearly 20 per cent of the population is based in the city’s 67 slums, although more recent data was not at hand. Another huge issue in the city is drinking water. The municipal corporation provides water for short spells about thrice a month, residents say. The rest of the time, people have to call in water tankers for daily use and also purchase drinking water.
Rise, fall, rise of Ballari’s minelords-turned-politicians
Ballari’s reputation as a billionaire’s district has been largely built by the Reddy brothers —Somashekara, Janardhana, and Karunakara.
Sons of an Andhra Pradesh police constable, they moved to Bellary in the 80s and eventually entered the iron-ore mining business in 2001, when they set up the Obulapuram Mining Company. Business roared during the 2004-06 mining boom and they reportedly minted huge amounts of money by exporting iron ore to countries like China.
Also forces to be reckoned with in the region were the Lad brothers, Anil and Santosh, who made their fortune through iron-ore mining too. As these mining families’ coffers grew, so did their political clout— the Reddys aligning with the BJP and the Lads with the Congress—and personal flamboyance.
Janardhana, in particular, gained notoriety for his fleet of imported luxury cars, including Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Range Rovers, and Rolls Royces, as well as his ownership of at least two helicopters.
“All of them owned helicopters,” recalls Ahiraj, a Bellary resident. “Anil Lad was, in fact, the first MLA in the country to purchase a helicopter and do constituency hopping in it. Janardhana Reddy owned two helicopters. One of them was named ‘Rukmini’ after his mother.”
According to Ahiraj, Janardhana was the ultimate “CEO”.
A CEO wants everything in order. The company functions as per the wishes of the CEO. If he wanted to have something, he’d have it. That was his aura,” he says.
However, the year 2011 was a major downer for Ballari’s mining czars.
In June that year, then Karnataka Lokayukta (ombudsman) accused Janardhana Reddy of rigging iron ore mining in the area and defrauding the government.
In a 466-page report he alleged that Reddy had misused his position as the tourism and infrastructure development minister in the B. S. Yeddyurappa cabinet.
“In my opinion, it is mainly because of the fact that a minister in the cabinet, who is involved in mining, has been made the minister in charge of the Bellary district; he has manipulated his power to his advantage and has indulged in illegal mining, through companies of which he was director/partner and his supporters by misusing the administration,” the report said.
“He has used the officials of other mining companies to share their produce on the promise of providing these companies with all necessary permits and assuring them free and uninterrupted transportation of their material to destinations of their choice. The system has come to be known as the ‘Zero Risk System,” the report added.
Later the CBI, in the Obulapuram mining case, accused Janardhana and others of mining far beyond the 25.7 hectares his company was allowed to mine. The agency further alleged that Reddy had mined approximately 27 lakh tonnes of iron ore illegally. Janardhana was arrested in September 2011.
That same year, the Lad brothers came under the CBI scanner too, with the agency eventually arresting then Congress MLA Anil Lad in 2015 for allegedly illegally exporting iron ore from the Belikeri port.
Meanwhile, the imported cars and helicopters were all seized.
“You’ll be surprised to hear that the chopper after the CBI seizure was lying idle for many years at the Jakkur aerodrome. Because it just stood there, it became unusable. Janaradhana later filed an application in the CBI court to regain possession of his cars and choppers to conduct maintenance, but he was denied permission,” recalls political analyst Malagi.
After being dumped by the BJP following the mining scandal, Janardhana Reddy started the KRPP in December 2022, after a political hiatus of almost 12 years. His party has fielded 37 candidates this election, concentrated mostly in the Kalyana Karnataka region.
Reddy vs Reddy vs Congress’ ‘youth face’
When asked about their election predictions, many people in Ballari concur that this year’s election battle is between Aruna Lakshmi of the KRPP and Bharath Reddy of the Congress. Locals claim that Somashekara Reddy has not spent as much money this time around.
Bharath, scion to a granite business, is the son of Suryanarayana Reddy, who was a Congress MLA from the adjoining Kurugodu constituency and fought his last election in 2004. Bharath himself has served as a Zilla Panchayat member from the Ballari Rural area.
“I come from a family that is involved in the granite industry,” he says. “I’m not distributing pressure cookers or building temples because of elections. You know the history of my family and we have been involved in various kinds of charity work every year. We donate to churches, temples, and orphanages. It’s part of a Trust that we are running. There’s no politics in it,” he told ThePrint, shortly after inducting his uncle Pratap into the Congress Wednesday.
He says that though people seem to be saying Aruna Lakshmi is his main competitor, it is actually the BJP. New parties like the KRPP, according to him, will not figure anywhere.
“This party was established three months back, I don’t think they will make any impact on Bellary city elections. The KRPP is the B-team of the BJP. They are just trying to use the anti-incumbency against the BJP to their advantage,” he opines.
He further says that sitting MLA Somashekara Reddy has“looted” Ballari for several years.
“If it wasn’t for my family, the Reddy brothers would have done a lot more damage to Ballari. He (Somashekara) has destroyed all the institutional structures here. He has ruined the image of Ballari with his corruption,” Bharath alleges. “They are called the Reddy brothers, I call them the ‘bhrashta’ (corrupt) brothers.”
Somashekara Reddy, on the other hand, calls both his opponents “inexperienced”.
“Bharath Reddy does not know the problems of the city. He does not know what the people want,” says Somashekara.
He has stronger words for his sister-in-law, whom he describes as a “housewife”.
“She came to the campaign trail straight from home. She doesn’t know anything about politics. She is a housewife,” He says.
“I, on the other hand, have been serving the people of this constituency as a grassroots leader since 2008. I have done work in my tenure. I want to do more work to solve water and drainage problems in the city. We will come up with two reservoirs to solve the water problem,” he adds.
Somashekara concedes that one of the problems in the city is that many people do not possess title deeds (known as hakku patras) for home ownership.
“I have distributed over 8000 hakku patras during my tenure and will distribute more if elected again. I’m not taking my brother’s name at all. Aruna is taking (Janardhana Reddy’s name) because she has nothing else to go to the people with,” he says.
Asked about the battle of billionaires, Somashekara says he isn’t one. “I have billions of people who love me. That is what makes me who I am.”
When ThePrint meets Aruna Lakshmi, she is canvassing in Ballari with a football in hand: the symbol of the KRPP. With a congenial manner and dressed in a cotton sari, she greets people and reminds them that she is Janardhana Reddy’s wife.
She says she uses her husband’s name because people in Bellary still remember what he has done for them.
“I’m contesting for the first time and people are receiving me well. I came into politics unexpectedly. Janardhana Reddy made the BJP come to power in Ballari. A false case was made against him and he has been kept away from Bellary. When he was MLC, he developed roads and created jobs in Bellary. That’s why when I take his name, people treat me as their daughter,” she says.
She adds that she comes from a political family herself and her husband has also taught her a lot about politics and Bellary. “The people will teach me the rest,” she says.
When asked about the saris she was distributing, said to be worth Rs 2,000 each, she says money and gifts can only do so much.
“Yes, money plays a crucial role but people’s votes can’t be bought. There are problems of water, drainage, and ownership of homes in this area. The people will vote for those who think that they can bring development,” she says.
‘Janardhana would have made Bellary a smart city’
Even those who call themselves Congress voters say that Janardhana Reddy has done immense development work for Ballari. They also that there was a sense of dignity and pride that Ballari was accorded during his time in the political echelons.
“After he went away from politics, growth has stopped in Bellary. At the time any person, if they wanted, could earn Rs 4,000 a day. There was so much opportunity to do business that we wouldn’t have a place to set up our businesses,” says Mohd. Rafik, a 36-year-old shop owner at Ballari’s Royal Circle.
“Ballari was famous at the time,” he adds.
Those who voted for the BJP also say that after Janardhana’s departure, they cast their ballot for the party because of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We voted for development but now there’s not much. It really has gone down since Janardhana Reddy left. Now there’s only casteism in people’s minds. We need to secure our children’s futures,” says 40-year-old Nandini Naveen, a saleswoman in Ballari city.
Ganesh Valmiki and S. Vidyapathi, both 62 years old and best friends, are on different sides of the spectrum when it comes to this.
While Valmiki is a BJP voter, Vidyapathi votes Congress.
“There are some problems, but BJP is solving everything,” declares Ganesh.
“I don’t think there are any problems either. But Ballari is a city which has not seen communalism. I don’t want that to change,” laughs Vidyapathi.
Janardhana Reddy holds appeal for a section of the city’s youth too, even if they don’t plan to vote for his wife. Cheanappa, a 21-year-old student, and a staunch supporter of Bharath Reddy says Janardhana spent a lot of his “personal wealth” to develop Ballari.
“If he was around, Ballari would have become a smart city today,” Chenappa says.
Other residents are more cynical. They say that the ‘kanakambaram’ and ‘khakhra’ continue to rule politics in the city. A nickname hasn’t been coined for the Rs 2,000 note yet.
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