The stage is set for voting for elections to the Karnataka Assembly. This coming poll on May 10 is part of a series of electoral frays slated this year.
All eyes will be on voting in the Old Mysuru region as there are 60 seats here, and Muslims constitute about 12 per cent of the total electorate. Importantly, on average Muslim turnout in elections is estimated to be more than 75 per cent. Moreover, Vokkaligas have about 42 per cent voters in the region.
Just a few months back, people exercised their franchise in three North Eastern States. Immediately after Karnataka, the focus will shift to the five States of MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram.
Thus the battle of Karnataka has an importance of its own. And talking about the Karnataka battle, there is an enhanced significance of the battle in the Old Mysuru region.
Stretching from Bengaluru (Rural) to Chamarajanagar districts, there are as many as 60 seats. The Vokkaligas are crucial as they make up about 42 per cent of the population.
This forms the powerful base of Vokkaligas – the caste group of former PM H D Deve Gowda and hence of the JD(S). There are substantial Muslim voters, and Congress also managed to get a sizable share of votes, and this time, the BJP is making a serious effort to make a deep penetration.
All these are normal observations and inputs. But a critical factor is the politics around Tipu Sultan.
Congress Chief Minister Siddaramaiah introduced the ‘Tipu Jayanti’ celebrations, triggering a hyped political row.
But in this year’s polls, as the saffron party wants to improve its performance in the region to retain power comfortably in Bengaluru, paradoxically, the Congress party played so-called ‘soft Hindutva’ and virtually forgot Tipu Sultan.
“Mallikarju Kharge is from our State, he could have easily come here to pay tribute to Tipu Sultan at his memorial. But the All India Congress president wants to play soft Hindutva and keep Hindu voters happy and hence Tipu Sultan was forgotten,” says a local resident Naseer Zia.
Even the family members of Tipu Sultan voiced their ‘displeasures’ with Congress as Karnataka State Congress president visited the Chamundeshwari temple — not very far from Tipu Sultan’s statue. Nevertheless, politics is all about votes, and the Old Mysuru region was no exception.
For their part, BJP poll strategists feel the JD(S) popularity and Deve Gowda’s grip on the Vokkaliga community is on the wane. Deve Gowda himself lost from Tumkur parliamentary constituency in 2019. His grandson Nikhil Gowda also lost from Mandya, and several other JD-S candidates also were humbled. The only consolation came in Deve Gowda’s other grandson, Prajwal Revanna, winning the Hassan seat.
The BJP is more than keen to fill in the gap presumably vacated by the Gowda family owing to multiple factors, including non-performance of Gowda’s son Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister and the age factor of the former Prime Minister himself.
The BJP declared 42 Vokkaliga candidates in this year’s polls. The Congress understandably believes the Muslim votes will come to it as a natural flow.
Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi’s trusted man D K Shivakumar, the State Congress chief, also belongs to the Vokkaliga community.
Thus, analysts feel the battle is wide open in this region. The crucial assembly seat of Krishnarajapete (also called KR Pete) has shown the changing political dynamics.
In 2018, K C Narayanagowda of the JD(S) won the seat with a good margin, but he defected to the BJP – one of the 17 MLAs and subsequently, H D Kumaraswamy-led JD(S)-Congress coalition Government was toppled. In fact, if Narayanagowda surprised observers with his defection, people were essentially shell-shocked as he won the seat again as a BJP candidate in the 2019 bypolls.
The BJP has fielded him again for the K R Pete seat for May 10 polls. The saffron party strategists feel Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s magical spell will change the entire dynamics in this region.
In the 2021 assembly by-polls, the JD-S candidate lost the Maski assembly seat as well.
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