After much churning, the Congress finalised Na. Ra. Bharath Reddy for Ballari (General) constituency, paving the way for a high-voltage triangular fight between the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the newly formed Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP), founded by former Minister Gali Janardhan Reddy who recently broke away from BJP.
The BJP announced G. Somashekhar Reddy, brother of Mr. Janardhan Reddy, and the KRPP has given a ticket to Aruna Lakshmi, wife of Mr. Janardhan Reddy.
Senior Congressmen Diwakar Babu and Anil Lad, apart from Allam Prakash, son of former Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Allam Veerabhadrappa, tried to secure party ticket using their proximity to All-India Congress Committee president M. Mallikarjun Kharge.
However, Mr. Bharath Reddy, a young leader and son of an influential politician and former MLA for Kurugodu constituency Suryanarayana Reddy, managed to get the ticket, with his early voter outreach programmes.
Ballari has traditionally been a Congress stronghold. Former Congress chief Sonia Gandhi chose to contest the 1999 Lok Sabha elections from Ballari and won against nearest rival, the BJP’s Sushma Swaraj.
However, the mining boom changed the balance of power for a brief period with Mr. Janardhan Reddy emerging as a strong leader. In the 2004 Assembly elections, his close associate B. Sriramulu won the Ballari segment on the BJP ticket defeating Diwakar Babu of the Congress by 6,711 votes
In the 2008 Assembly elections, Mr. Somashekhar Reddy defeated the Congress’ Anil Lad by 1,022 votes.
In 2013, the State politics changed owing to an internal conflict in BJP that resulted in B.S. Yediyurappa and Mr. Sriramulu parting ways with the BJP and forming their own parties, the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP) and the Badavara Shramikara Raithara (BSR) Congress respectively. In Ballari, Mr. Lad won, defeating Murali Krishna from the BSR Congress by 18,200 votes.
With Mr. Yediyurappa and Mr. Sriramulu coming back to the BJP fold, coupled with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity, the equation again changed in the 2018 elections. Ballari fell into the hands of the BJP with Mr. Somashekhar Reddy beat Mr. Lad by 16,155 votes.
The situation might turn favourable for the Congress in 2023 owing to Mr. Janardhan Reddy forming his own political outfit to contest the elections. In Ballari, it is very much possible that the traditional vote bank of the BJP and that of the Reddy brothers could be divided among the BJP and the KRPP, giving an advantage to Mr. Bharath Reddy.
Confident in getting a Congress ticket, Mr. Bharat Reddy had taken out multiple voter outreach programmes in the constituency. Before his rivals visited voters’ houses for the first time, Mr. Bharat Reddy had already completed his third round with multiple programmes.
His early initiative is likely to give him positive dividends in the elections.
