Ballari: The BJP intends to field former legislator, Gali Somashekhar Reddy, brother of beleaguered mining baron- turned- politician, Janardhan Reddy, from Ballari in the coming state assembly elections.
Revealing this here on Friday, state BJP chief, B S Yeddyurappa warned Congress president, Rahul Gandhi against opting to contest from the iron ore rich district in the not so far away Lok Sabha elections.
Hitting out against Mr Gandhi for “ trying to lure scheduled tribe leaders of the BJP to join his party,” Mr Yeddyurappa asserted he would lose from Ballari if he contested against ST community strongman and Member of Parliament from the constituency, B Sriramulu by a massive margin of one lakh votes.
The BJP leader who was addressing the 'Karnataka Parivartana Yatra' here, accused previous Congress president, Sonia Gandhi of betraying the people of Ballari by resigning her Lok Sabha seat from the constituency to retain Amethi without even informing them. "So the people of Ballari must teach a befitting lesson to Rahul Gandhi by defeating him," he stressed amidst speculation that Mr Gandhi could desert Amethi for “a safer seat” in the next Lok Sabha election.
Mr Yeddyurappa claimed that the Rs 3300 crore Sonia Gandhi Special Package for Ballari had been looted by Congress leaders as the district had received nothing under it. The package was announced by then Chief Minister, SM Krishna in 1999 after Ms Gandhi gave up her Ballari Lok Sabha seat.
The BJP president appealed to the people of Ballari to ensure that Mr Somashekhar Reddy won with a margin of over 20,000 votes and promised to work hard to link the Tungabhadra and Krishna rivers to provide them water.
