The Reddys have been facing a serious charge of tampering with the border markings between Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and also encroaching reserve forest land for their mining enterprise. Reddys, interestingly, hold their mining leases across the border in AP while they do their politics in Karnataka. There is a Karnataka Lokayukta report on the tampering of the boundary line and the issue has been raised in the Assemblies of both Andhra and Karnataka.
If this were not sufficient pressure, in April, the union ministry of environment andforests ordered suspension of two mining licenses of the Reddys pending a survey of the border area. Interestingly, as early as February 2009, the Yeddyurappa government had itself written to theunion government offering "full co-operation" to the survey of the "disputed boundary line" by the director general, Survey of India. About a week ago,environment minister Jairam Ramesh again ordered an enquiry by the director-general of forests into alleged violations of the Forest Conservation Act by mining companies in Bellary.
As if to complement this mounting pressure, the whisper doing the rounds in the top echelons of the state government is that the Congress may be "using the services" of Andhra CM, Y S Rajashekar Reddy to create dissidence in the state BJP through the Reddys. YSR Reddy's son and newly-elected MP, Jaganmohan Reddy, has business ties with the Bellary Reddys and is rumoured to have a huge stake in the Brahmani Steel Plant set up by them in Kadapa, the home district of the Andhra CM. "We have reason to believe that in denying Kumaraswamy a Union cabinet berth the Congress was keeping their Reddy option open. The Reddys are arch rivals of the Gowdas and the Congress can cultivate only one of the two at a time. The Congress also realises that it is only the Reddys who have the daring and the resources to inflict damage on the BJP government," said a top source.