
In the mining town of Karnataka’s Ballari, Congress leader Nara Bharat Reddy had tried to take first-mover advantage by launching his campaign months ahead of the state assembly elections, going door to door, promising a politics “without corruption” in the Bellary City segment.
The constituency, after all, saw G Janardhan Reddy, a mining baron and the brother of the sitting MLA G Somashekara Reddy, being exiled from Ballari by no other than the Supreme Court last year over a slew of CBI cases. The cases came after the Karnataka Lokayukta exposed Janardhan Reddy’s alleged role in a mining racket, helping the Congress win the seat in the 2013 elections.