The Bellary voters have rejected former minister B Sriramulu’s party, the BSR Congress. The party failed to open its account in the leader’s home district through urban local body (ULB) polls.
On the other hand, the Congress that had lost its control over the district in the last eight years, has made its comeback by winning 137 seats.
The ruling BJP and the JD(S) have bagged 18 and six seats respectively.
The Independents have won a whooping 85 seats.
Of the total 246 seats contested in the district, the BSR Congress has not won a single seat, indicating the voters’ mood.
The Bellary electorate seems to have rejected the powerful Reddy brothers and Sriramulu who had controlled the district since 2004.
After leaving the BJP government, Sriramulu launched the regional party to give a ‘fitting’ reply to the BJP for not accommodating him in the D V Sadananda Gowda Cabinet. Bellary district had elected BJP candidates in seven of the eight Assembly constituencies in the 2008 elections. The Reddy brothers had wielded so much influence on the BJP government that the district had three ministers.
They continued to rule the district till Janardhana Reddy went to jail in illegal mining cases. Subsequently, Sriramulu’s relationship with the BJP government deteriorated, forcing him to quit the party.
He then contested as an Independent candidate from the Bellary Rural Assembly constituency in the by-elections and won by a big margin. After sometime, he launched his party as an alternative to the BJP. In his bid to keep the flag flying, Sriramulu had embarked on a 740-km padayatra from Basavakalyana to Bangalore and had also sat on a hunger strike near TB dam demanding release of sufficient water for both irrigation and drinking purposes.
Sriramulu pinned hopes on the voters that they would support his political outfit. However, the voters have given their mandate rejecting not only the BSR but also the Reddy brothers and Sriramulu.