A curious case of Jayanagar & Ramalinga Reddy family

BENGALURU: Elections in India have thrown up several interesting tales for the keeps, but this coincidence is like no other. In the winter of 1989, a young Congress corporator from Lakkasandra had built up hopes of entering the state assembly and his party, the Congress, had obliged with a ticket from Jayanagar.

Ramalinga Reddy was faced with competition on three fronts: Janata Dal, BJP and MP Jayaraj, a history-sheeter with strong ties to senior Karnataka politicians, contesting as an independent.

When Reddy began his first campaign, Jayaraj was in jail. Having chosen ‘tiger’ as his symbol, the history-sheeter came out on a 15-day parole to campaign for the elections. On November 21, Jayaran was gunned down by rival gangsters near Ashoka Pillar. The Election Commission countermanded the elections and Ramalinga Reddy won the fresh bid with a thumping margin of 17,000 votes.


Reddy has never lost an election since, even after he shifted to the BTM Layout constituency in 2008. In hindsight, Reddy says: “I think I would’ve won even if Jayaraj was alive. My BJP rival got 9,000-odd votes and the JD candidate got a little over 20,000.”

Twenty-nine years later, the polls in Jayanagar was countermanded again after the death of BJP candidate BN Vijayakumar and hanging in balance is the fate of Soumya Reddy, daughter of Ramalinga Reddy. Polling is now scheduled on June 11.

Ramalinga Reddy does not fail to acknowledge the strange coincidence, although Vijayakumar died of natural causes unlike Jayaraj. AB Adinarayana, a political activist, said: “We were all campaigning for Reddy and were frankly disappointed with Jayaraj’s murder. We wanted to defeat him and send Reddy to the assembly.”

Tara to contest?

The BJP is vetting names of probable candidates and among those doing the rounds is that of actor Tara Anuradha, who says she’d give it her all if the party picks here. “I was born and brought up here, even my grandfather is from here. I studied in RV School and Jayanagar is my home. If the party picks me, I am confident that people will support me,” Tara said.