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| Edited By: Hemanth Kumar |Source: DNA |Updated: May 31, 2011, 08:46 AM IST
It is not just the red hills of Bellary district that seem to have turned angry for the Reddy brothers, who prospered digging black gold from the land. Nothing seems to be going right for the brothers. Even their Godmother is showing signs of turning away from her ‘proud sons’.
Leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj’s denial that she ensured ministerial berths for not only the Reddy brothers, Karunakara and Janardhana, but also their associate, B Sriramulu, is being seen as another indication of the mining barons’ impending fall from the pedestal.
While Sushma has chosen to remain mum on the media debate over the issue, chief minister BS Yeddyurappa on Monday tried to put an end to the controversy by shouldering responsibility for inducting the Reddys into his ministry and stating that the senior BJP leader had no role in this. However, the question still remains: who forced him to accommodate all the three Bellary boys in the ministry.
Sushma and Yeddyurappa’s words will not cut ice as Reddys had always taken pride in proclaiming that they owed their place under the sun to ‘mother Sushma Swaraj’. Not many have forgotten Sushma’s mediation in brokering peace in November 2009 when the Reddys highjacked a majority of BJP MLAs and threatened to overthrow Yeddyurappa.
Those rebels who owed their allegiance to Reddys have now turned ardent loyalists of Yeddyurappa. The timing of Sushma’s statement has stirred serious speculations about the trio’s continuance in the ministry after the next cabinet reshuffle, expected to be effected after the legislature session starting on June 2.
The lok syukta’s final report on illegal mining will be out within the next fortnight and the Supreme Court verdict on the illegal mining case is not far away either. Both are expected to bring further embarrassment to the BJP government.
With the BJP gearing up to take on the UPA with corruption as the main poll plank in the next mahasangram for Lok Sabha, and Sushma nursing ambitions of leading the poll battle, the Reddys could become thorns in her flesh. Party insiders see Sushma’s rumblings as a well thought out plan to distance herself from the mining barons.
“We are not perturbed by Sushma’s statement and there is no change in our respect and association with the ‘mother’,” said G Karunakara Reddy, reacting for the first time to the issue on Monday, sans the Reddys’ signature tenor and force that one had been witnessing over the last one decade.
Doubts over Sushma turning up at Reddys’ home for the special puja for Varamahalakshmi festival, a ritual she has been following since 1999, has only lent further credence to reports that all is not well between Bellary boys and their godmother.
