Bharatiya Janata Party Announces Its Second List of 82 Candidates in Karnataka

The assembly elections in Karnataka are to be held on 12 May 2018. The Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and Janata Dal (Secular) (JD(S)), the major parties contesting in this elections have been campaigning in the state for about an year now. As the elections approach, these parties are now facing internal clashes based on the tickets: Congress released a list of 218 candidates for 244 assembly seats on 15 April 2018: the candidates who were expecting tickets this election and were disappointed by the list, carried out violent protests against Siddaramaiah in Bangalore and elsewhere; BJP had released a list of 72  candidates on 8 April 2018, and on 16 April 2018 the party has released a list of 82 of candidates- in total BJP has announced  154 candidates; JD(S) had announced a list of 126 candidates.

The first list of candidates that the BJP had released had B Sriramulu, an accused in the infamous Bellary mining scam in it and now the second list has Gali Somashekhar Reddy, the younger brother of Gali Janardhana Reddy the chief accused in the Bellary mining scam. Somashekhar Reddy is a member of Obulapuram Mining Company owned by the infamous Reddy brothers (G Karunakar Reddy, G Janardhana Reddy and G Somashekhar Reddy) and  has number of cases filed against it, related to the mining scam. Somashekhar Reddy now is to contest from Bellary region.

Somashekhar Reddy was MLA of Bellary constituency during B S Yeddyurappa’s BJP government in Karnataka from 2008-2011; he also was the chairman of the Karnataka Milk Federation. B Sriramulu in 2011 following the Bellary mining scam, moved out of BJP and founded the Badavara Shramikara Raithara (BSR) Congress and Reddy openly supported BSR Congress in the elections in 2011. In 2012 a charge sheet was filed against G. Somashekar Reddy for threatening Conservator of Forests U.V. Singh, during his visit to Ramgadh forest area in Sandur taluk in September 2009, in connection with the Lokayukta investigation into illegal mining. According to a firstpost report Reddy is also facing charges of offering bribe to Justice Pattabhiram of the Hyderabad CBI court in order to get bail for his brother Janardhan Reddy.

Katta Subramanya Naidu, Murugesh Nirani and MP Renukarcharya are the other candidates named in the list. Both Katta Subramanya Naidu (was the BWSSB and IT minister in Yeddyurappa’s government) and his son Katta Jagadish Naidu were arrested in a case of Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) land grabbing scam. Murugesh Nirani who was a minister of industries during Yeddyurappa’s government was also booked in a land scam.