Zee Media Bureau Bellary: As polling date in Karnataka draws closer, three mining barons, Tourism minister B.S. Anand Singh of the BJP, H. Abdul Wahab of the Congress and Rani Samyukta of the BSR Congress, are finding it hard to contest polls from Hospet constituency after the Supreme Court on Thursday ordered cancelling of their mining leases.
Also, Singh and Rani Samyukta are under CBI under scrutiny for the Belekeri iron ore export scam.
Singh, seeking re-election, is confident of breaking the trend that no sitting MLA has been re-elected from the Hospet constituency. Singh is relying upon his sugarcane farmers votebank and the Valmiki and Muslim communities. After two defeats in 1989 and 1994, Wahab is contesting the Assembly elections after almost two decades.