Bangalore: Once struggling entrepreneurs in Bellary district, the Reddy brothers--Karnataka ministers G Janardhana Reddy and G Karunakara Reddy--have a lot to thank Congress president Sonia Gandhi and China's hunger for steel for the meteoric rise in their political and financial clout in just over ten years.
They have mounted a campaign to remove Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa.
The brothers--Janardhana is tourism minister, elder Karunakara holds the revenue portfolio and the third sibling Somashekara is a legislator--were entrepreneurs in Bellary district, about 400 km from Bangalore, in 1999 when Gandhi decided to test her electoral fortunes for the first time by contesting the Lok Sabha poll from Bellary as well as her family stronghold of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh.
Since both the Congress and Gandhi were unsure of victory in Amethi, they chose Bellary as the second bet as it was the party's bastion and the BJP had marginal presence in the iron-ore rich, arid and backward constituency.
The BJP, which was determined to block Gandhi's entry to parliament because of her foreign origin, fielded its fiery orator Sushma Swaraj as its state unit lacked a strong leader to take on the Congress president.
The Reddy brothers joined the BJP almost at the same time as the non-banking finance company Janardhana Reddy was running was not doing well. He had gained some popularity in Bellary as he was running a residential school for spastic children since 1989.
They vigorously campaigned for Swaraj. She lost, but the doors of fortune had opened for the Reddys as they came to know a central leader--a gain that would not have come their way if they had thrown in their lot with the Congress and Gandhi.
To their luck, Gandhi quit the Bellary seat, preferring to retain Amethi from where too she had won.
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