BANGALORE: Reddy brothers, the mining czars of Bellary district, who used to call shots in the party and the government when the first-ever BJP government was formed in Karnataka in May 2008 and fell out quickly with B S Yeddyurappa in 2009 after triggering a open rebellion, interestingly aligned with their bete noire in his turbulent days.Three ministers including Revenue Minister G Karunakara Reddy and his younger brother and the tourism minister G Janardhana Reddy and their close associate and health minister B Sreeramulu were in the opposite camp when they found Yeddyurappa interfering their mining business and putting spokes in their trading of iron ore from the district. The stand-off between the Reddy brothers and Yeddyurappa even gone to such and extent that the outgoing CM pulled the rug behind their feet. Both sides chose to bury their enmity when Lokayukta Santhosh Hegde indicted Yeddyurappa along with Reddy brothers and Sreeramulu for involving in the illegal mining business in his report submitted to the government. However, when the party high command decided to show the door to Yeddyurappa, the Reddy brothers, contrary to expectations, put their weight behind the beleaguered CM and extended their support to him. The realisation that they could not antagonize Yeddyurappa who emerged as the supreme leader in the powerful Lingayath community -- which forms a majority in Bellary -- must have caused them to show their solidarity with him.The Reddy brothers walking along with Yeddyurappa to the Raj Bhavan from the latter’s residence raised many eyebrows in K S Ishwarappa and Jagadish Shettar camps, who were also lobbying hard to replace Yeddyurappa.
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