Bengaluru: The Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S) has refused to cede the Channapatna assembly seat, which is scheduled for bypolls, to ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), denying the latter the chance to penetrate further into the Vokkaliga heartland of Karnataka.
Union minister and chief of the state unit of JD(S), H.D. Kumaraswamy, who had vacated the Channapatna seat to contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections from the neighbouring Mandya, said this week that there was “no agreement on ceding Channapatna” in its alliance with the BJP before he decided to contest.
“We have had two consecutive victories in this seat and I cannot take any decision without taking my party workers into confidence,” he told mediapersons Thursday, adding that Channapatna has been a “JD(S) stronghold” for a very long time.
With the imminent bypoll, Kumaraswamy is hoping to secure a seat for his actor-politician son and JD(S) youth wing president, Nikhil Kumaraswamy, who has unsuccessfully contested elections twice before this. He convened a meeting of local party leaders and workers at his farmhouse near Bidadi Saturday and said that there was pressure from workers and functionaries for Nikhil to contest the byelection from Channapatna. He also said that the party needs to collaborate with its alliance partner, the BJP.
The elections for Maharashtra and Jharkhand state assemblies are scheduled to be held in November, around the same time as the Channapatna byelection. Kumaraswamy indicated that the election announcement could be made within a week, and discussions would be held with the BJP’s high command in Delhi, according to a statement by the party. Kumaraswamy said that the party would consult with its alliance partner before finalising the candidate and that there is pressure from JD(S) workers to retain the seat.
However, BJP MLC C.P. Yogeshwar is looking to reclaim the seat, even though he lost to Kumaraswamy in 2023, when the two parties were not allies. He has previously represented the Channapatna constituency in the Karnataka assembly as an Independent in 1999, as a Congress MLA in 2004 and 2008, and even defeated Kumaraswamy’s wife, Anita, in the 2013 polls on a Samajwadi Party ticket. He then lost the 2018 and 2023 assembly elections here to Kumaraswamy.
He has now threatened to contest as an Independent, if the BJP ends up denying him the ticket. The BJP’s Channapatna unit has also thrown its weight behind Yogeshwar, demanding that he be announced as the ‘alliance candidate’ for the bypolls.
“The dates of the bypolls will be announced soon and the BJP is getting stronger in Ramanagara. Yogeshwar used to represent us earlier, and then Kumaraswamy won from here. I would like to request our national leadership to announce Yogeshwar as the alliance candidate, and ask Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy to allow this,” Anandaswamy, president of the Ramanagara district unit of the BJP, told reporters Thursday.
The local unit believes that this will be a shot in the arm for the BJP and will strengthen it in these parts.
The rift between the parties has been growing wider with the former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda-led party playing hardball with its ally. The JD(S) is working hard not to be seen as an extension of the BJP and retain its individual identity, which is fuelling the rift, sources within the party said.
The party had joined hands with the PM Narendra Modi-led BJP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, after its seat tally was reduced to just 19 in the 2023 assembly elections.
The BJP-JD(S) alliance won in 19 of the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies in Karnataka, restricting the Congress to just nine. The JD(S) won two of the three seats it contested in the state and Kumaraswamy made his way into the Union Cabinet as the minister of heavy industries.
The BJP had allied with the JD(S) to make inroads into the Old Mysuru region, where it has had little presence, while the latter was trying to strengthen its position against the Congress, its key challenger in the southern districts of Karnataka.
Also Read: How beleaguered Siddaramaiah is using three-pronged strategy to counter MUDA ‘scam’ charges
Access to Old Mysuru
The JD(S) draws most of its strength from the Old Mysuru region, where the Vokkaligas, a land-owning agrarian community, are dominant. The Vokkaligas tend to back the JD(S) in the assembly polls and the BJP in the general elections. Allowing the BJP access to these parts would not be too favourable for the JD(S).
Channapatna is situated near Kanakpura, the bastion of state Congress president D.K. Shivakumar, who has been trying to gain more ground in these parts to better his chances of replacing Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, if and when he steps down. Siddaramaiah has been accused of involvement in a “scam” pertaining to preferential allotment of land to his wife by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) and other irregularities in its operations.
Though the JD(S) has tried to corner the Congress over graft allegations along with the BJP, it had initially refused to take part in the BJP-led padayatra or foot march in August to mount pressure on the chief minister.
Kumaraswamy has said that he had suggested Yogeshwar’s name for the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha seat. “If the JD(S) and the BJP unite, winning here (Channapatna) will not be difficult. The Congress has been cornered nationally under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, and we must replicate that in Channapatna. It would be easier if we consensually field an NDA candidate. I have conveyed this to Yogeshwar,” Kumaraswamy told media persons.
Political analysts point out that the BJP has formed the government twice in Karnataka, but failed to secure a simple majority on both occasions. To win a majority, it needs to gain access to the Old Mysuru region.
“In this region, the JD(S) is in direct competition with the Congress. Joining the BJP was aimed at defeating the Congress and not losing more ground,” A. Narayana, Bengaluru-based political analyst, told ThePrint.
The Congress suffered a major setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections as it lost all seats, barring one in the Old Mysuru region, which includes all four seats of Bengaluru, Mandya, Tumakuru, Chikkaballapura, Mysuru-Kodagu, Udupi, Chikmagaluru and Hassan. The only seat it managed to win was Hassan, from where rape accused JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna contested.
The JD(S) was given only three seats in the seat-sharing deal with the BJP—Mandya, Kolar (reserved for Scheduled Castes) and Hassan. The party won the other two.
Deve Gowda’s son-in-law, Dr C.N. Manjunath, successfully contested on a BJP ticket from the Bangalore Rural seat, defeating state Congress president Shivakumar’s brother, D.K. Suresh.
Sources told ThePrint that Kumaraswamy wants his son, Nikhil, to enter the state legislature from Channapatna. Nikhil had lost to BJP-backed Sumalatha Ambareesh in Mandya in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and Iqbal Hussain of the Congress in the 2023 assembly polls from Kumaraswamy’s home turf of Ramanagara.
Kumaraswamy has won the fight for dominance among the Gowdas, with his brother, H.D. Revanna’s family facing grave charges of sexual assault, kidnapping, criminal intimidation and outraging the modesty of a woman, among other cases. Revanna’s son, Prajwal remains in police custody over charges of rape and his other son, Suraj, is out on bail in a case of sodomy.
Having distanced himself from these allegations, Kumaraswamy now wants to get his son elected to the assembly, which would give him complete control over the party.
“95 percent of the leaders and workers believe Nikhil should contest. However, we must assess the current situation before making a decision,” he said Saturday.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
Also Read: Hindu-Muslim clashes rising in Karnataka’s Mandya. Vokkaliga hub is the new ‘Hindutva laboratory’