Former Karnataka minister G Janardhan Reddy, 57, who is accused in nine CBI cases linked to illegal mining from the 2008-2013 period — when the BJP was in power in the state — made a return to the party on Monday by merging his Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha party with the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls. The move is largely seen as an attempt by the BJP to offset the losses caused by the KRPP in a few districts of northern Karnataka in the 2023 state polls. Reddy is currently the sole MLA from the KRPP in the state. Speaking to reporters after merging the KRPP with the BJP on Monday, Reddy said that he had offered to support the BJP but Union Home Minister Amit Shah insisted on a merger. "Amit Shah told me that the question of external support does not arise. He reminded me that my political birth was in the BJP and asked me to return to the party," he said, adding that he had to exit the BJP in the past "due to unavoidable situations". "The return of Janardhan Reddy gives the BJP immense strength for the Lok Sabha polls," former Karnataka CM and BJP national executive member B S Yediyurappa said Monday. Reddy’s return is expected to boost the BJP's prospects in his old fiefdom of Ballari, an iron ore rich mining district, and its surrounding regions, especially in association with Reddy's old associate B Sreeramulu, a BJP leader of a Scheduled Tribe (Valmiki Nayak) community which has a vast population in the impoverished area. The money power of Janardhan Reddy as a mining baron and the popularity of Sreeramulu as an ST leader were key factors in BJP's success in the Ballari, Raichur and Koppal districts in north Karnataka from 2004 to 2013 — before an illegal mining scam brought down the Reddy mining empire. It was during the BJP’s 2008-2013 tenure in Karnataka – the first BJP government to be elected to power in any southern state – that Reddy and his brothers G Somashekara Reddy and G Karunakara Reddy, who were elected to the state assembly and Parliament respectively, gained infamy for allegedly illegally grabbing iron ore from forests and the iron-ore mines of private and public firms. An investigation by the Karnataka Lokayukta in 2010-11 had revealed illegal export of iron ore worth more than Rs 12,228 crore from Karnataka between 2006 and 2011 by a mining mafia operated by Janardhan Reddy who allegedly turned Ballari into his fiefdom. The Reddy brothers rose to prominence after working for Sushma Swaraj, the BJP candidate from Ballari in the 1999 Lok Sabha poll against the Congress party's Sonia Gandhi. The role of Janardhan Reddy in the illegal mining in Ballari was exposed by the Karnataka Lokayukta and he was arrested by the CBI in September in 2011, two months after the Lokayukta report on illegal mining rocked the state. The CBI probe into illegal mining in Karnataka between 2008 and 2011 - conducted on the Supreme Court directions - found that a mining mafia allegedly run by Janardhan Reddy and his associates excavated iron ore illegally from Ballari and surrounding areas and sold it to traders who transported it to ports and exported it without forest clearances and taxes. Reddy, who was imprisoned for nearly a year after his arrest in 2011, was until recently barred from entering the Ballari region on the orders of the Supreme Court. While the BJP gradually distanced itself from Janaradhan Reddy since 2011, the party continued its association with his brothers and his associate Sreeramulu. Reddy formally exited the BJP in 2022 to form his own party, the KRPP, in what was seen as an effort to assert his political significance to the BJP. Reddy has also been making overtures to the Congress. In February , the Congress solicited Reddy’s support for a Rajya Sabha poll despite his almost pariah status in state politics on account of the illegal mining cases pending against him. Despite his apparent discomfiture, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who campaigned against illegal mining in the 2008-2013 period, also welcomed Janardhan Reddy's support for the Congress in the Rajya Sabha polls. On Sunday, Janardhan Reddy had stated that the return to the BJP was like a return to his mother. "Three months ago, I had informed the media that I would externally support BJP to see Narendra Modi as Prime Minister again. But after discussing with my followers, I have come to a decision to join the party. BJP is like my mother and I am returning to the party on Monday in the presence of state leaders," he said. Reddy has 20 pending criminal cases against him, according to his poll affidavit filed for the 2023 Karnataka Assembly polls. Out of the 20 cases, nine cases are being prosecuted by the CBI in the illegal mining scam. Reddy is not the only Ballari mining scam accused to be part of the BJP. Another accused person, Anand Singh, was a minister in the BJP government between 2019 and 2023. He was elected from the Vijaynagar seat on a Congress ticket in 2018 but defected to the BJP in 2019. Singh was made the forest minister of Karnataka in 2020 by the BJP despite pending forest cases against him related to illegal mining. He was later moved out of the portfolio. In a report published in July 2011, the Karnataka Lokayukta detailed the extent of the illegal mining racket in Karnataka, naming several BJP ministers, including then CM B S Yediyurappa. In 2016, Yediyurappa was acquitted in a case prosecuted by the CBI in which he and his sons were accused of receiving Rs 40 crore in kickbacks from mining firms. Since 2004, the Janardhan Reddy group has dominated politics in Ballari and has lost the region only briefly - in 2013, to the Congress - when the illegal mining racket was exposed by the Lokayukta. In 2013, when the BJP witnessed a split on account of corruption charges against top leaders such as Yediyurappa and Janardhan Reddy, the Ballari unit of the BJP led by Sreeramulu had floated a break away party called the Badavara Shramikara Raitara Congress or the BSR Congress which won three seats including the Ballari Rural seat where Sreeramulu contested. The party later merged with the BJP in 2014 and Sreeramulu was elected to the Lok Sabha as a BJP candidate. In March 2023, after Reddy floated his own KRPP outfit, the CBI sought issuance of letters of request to the governments of Switzerland, Singapore, the Isle of Man, and the UAE for information on the financial and banking details of a trading firm linked to Janardhan Reddy. The CBI alleged that proceeds from the illegal export of seven to eight million metric tonnes of iron ore from the Ballari region of Karnataka that was done by Reddy's Associated Mining Company were parked in accounts of a trading firm, GLA Trading International Pvt Ltd (named after the former BJP minister's wife G Lakshmi Aruna), in foreign countries.
