Before he sets off for the day’s campaign, Gali Somasekhara Reddy is at a newly constructed temple in Ballari city. The atmosphere is festive and the path to the sanctum sanctorum crowded. Reddy funded the construction of this temple, which is why after he has prayed to the deity, he is felicitated by the temple authorities.

I cannot help being reminded of a far more lavish ceremony at the Tirumala temple in Tirupati in 2009, when his younger brother Gali Janardhana Reddy presented the deity with a crown worth Rs 42 crore.

“Not only this temple but Somasekhara sir has done so much other development work for the people,” says Govind, who is part of the crowd of onlookers. He works as a driver in Ballari.

Aren’t you worried about the return of the Reddy brothers, their muscle power and reign over Ballari? I ask the group that has gathered at the temple.

“We want civic works in Ballari. Nothing else matters,” they say almost in chorus. I realise I am in Reddy territory where the Reddy parivaar is seen through rose-tinted glasses.

Seven years after the Lokayukta report of Justice Santosh Hegde felled Gali Janardhana Reddy by exposing the Rs 35,000-crore illegal mining scam and spelt the nemesis of his ‘Republic of Ballari’, the Karnataka elections of 2018 seem to have helped the homecoming of the Reddy clan.

What has caused much surprise also is the manner in which they have been accommodated. On March 31, BJP chief Amit Shah categorically said the party has nothing to do with Janardhana Reddy. Three weeks later, the BJP gave tickets to seven of Reddy’s family members and associates to contest in the state.

Somasekhara Reddy is the BJP candidate from Bellary city while another brother, Karunakar Reddy, is contesting from Harpanahalli. While B Sriramulu was always a certainty to contest, Reddy also managed tickets for Suresh Babu, Sanna Fakirappa and NY Gopalakrishna. His nephew Lallesh Reddy is the party candidate from a Bengaluru constituency.

If you take into account that Sriramulu is contesting from two constituencies, this means Reddy and company are the BJP’s faces in eight seats. That is quite a feat for someone who till the other day was treated as a political pariah.

What caused the BJP U-turn? The party was aware that it put up a pathetic performance in the 2013 Assembly elections in Ballari when it was routed in the district. It had gained strength in the last five years but the important part to note is that the BJP’s strength in Ballari is a mirage. The clout is in fact that of Sriramulu, and by extension Janardhana Reddy. If closer to the elections, the BJP has decided to bite the Reddy bullet, it is also a commentary on how the party is placed at the moment.

Sriramulu is known to be extremely loyal to Reddy. The BJP cannot afford to antagonise Sriramulu because he brings in a significant kitty of votes because of his Valmiki-Nayaka caste. His influence is not limited to Ballari but at least four more districts in the neighbourhood. That the BJP holds Sriramulu in high esteem can be gauged from the fact that he was chosen to taken on Siddaramaiah in Badami.

When Shah brusquely dismissed Reddy as persona non grata for the BJP, he had not bargained with the fallout. Both Janardhana Reddy and Sriramulu were extremely upset and their followers let it be known that they could explore other political options. Given Sriramulu’s political and caste clout, that was too much of a risk to take for the BJP. He had already demonstrated it in 2013 when his BSR Congress won three seats in Ballari and Chitradurga, hurting the BJP. Shah could hardly afford a repeat.

The BJP also calculated that in Ballari’s political theatre, just about every miner is tainted. While the Reddys are the most infamous of the lot, the Congress too has Anil Lad, who has a CBI case against him and is Somasekhara’s rival from Ballari city. Other miner-politicians like B Nagendra and Anand Singh (who moved from the BJP to the Congress this year) too have been arrested in cases of illegal export of iron ore.

In 2008, Janardhana Reddy had virtually bankrolled the BJP campaign, ensuring the formation of the first BJP government in south India. The eight seats a decade later are an opportunity to Reddy to take a political rebirth. If his men can win a majority of these seats and also influence other constituencies in favour of the BJP, Karnataka could see the return of the native.

Last week, when Sriramulu filed his nomination from Molkalmuru in Chitradurga district, Janardhana Reddy was on the dais with him. Also present were BS Yeddyurappa and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It is these optics that the Congress is hoping to harp on, calling the BJP list as one of Modi-fied Reddy brothers. All eyes will be on how the CBI cases against the Reddy brothers proceed. Somasekhara already calls them as politically motivated, filed at the behest of the then UPA government.

At the height of his political clout, Janardhana Reddy used to reportedly call himself the “CM of Ballari”. Today he sits in a guest house in Chitradurga on the border with Ballari, because he cannot enter his home district due to a Supreme Court order. The elections are Reddy’s fight to reclaim his kingdom. It is not a coincidence that Janardhana Reddy thinks of himself as King Krishnadevaraya reincarnated.