With the Election Commission announcing by-elections for two seats in Karnataka – Sira in Tumkur and Raja Rajeshwari Nagar (RR Nagar) in Bengaluru – it is the opposition Janata Dal (Secular) and Congress that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is trying to make a mark.
Sira’s seat was vacated after acting JDS lawmaker B Sathyanarayana died of the novel coronavirus on August 5. In the 2018 assembly elections, Munirathna Naidu from Congress won RR Nagar’s constituency, but then went over to the BJP.
Ironically, it was then-BJP candidate Tulsi Muniraju Gowda who went to court to challenge Naidu’s election on the grounds that he had created fake voter identification cards. Subsequently, the EC had declared Naidu’s election null and void.
With the ruling BJP having 117 seats in the 225-member assembly (including a nominated member) plus the support of two of the three independents, he sits comfortably with a clear and simple majority. However, it is the opposition parties that have something to prove in the elections.
DK Shivakumar, who was appointed president of the Karnataka Congress in March this year, is eager to show that under his leadership the party could take on the BJP.
For the JDS, it is a question of survival, as both seats are dominated by Vokkaliga and the party is traditionally seen as representing the interests of this community. It is also an election fight between JDS HD leader Kumaraswamy and DK Shivakumar over who will be seen as the true leader of Vokkaliga as they both belong to the community.
Kumaraswamy had recently acknowledged that Sira’s seat would be a test, even as he dismissed rumors of an increased proximity to BJP. “We will win over Sira,” Kumaraswamy had said on September 12 after holding a meeting of workers from the constituency.
However, a senior JDS leader who did not want to be named said the party faces a difficult task. Due to age and health related issues, even before the coronavirus claimed his life, Sathyanaryana was not very active in the constituency “so even if we give one of his family members a ticket to get the sympathy, it might not work. Also remember, even the highest leader of our party, Deve Gowda, was defeated in Tumkur in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll. ”Sira is an assembly constituency under the seat of Tumkur Lok Sabha.
Both Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy will be in Sira on Wednesday to decide their candidate and strategy.
Congress has already nominated former minister TB Jayachandra, who had lost the previous assembly elections, as a candidate. Karnataka President DK Shivakumar had declared on September 17 that ‘Jayachandra is the unanimous choice of the constituency workers and leaders. He has won six assembly polls in the past. I am sure that we will win the position again. “
BJP, which is the third player in the constituency, is likely to present SR Gowda or BK Manjunath. They are both party workers. In RR Nagar’s seat, the BJP is likely to give the ticket to renegade Congress, Munirathna Naidu, while Congress and JDS may present new faces. The parties are all meeting to finalize the names of the candidates, except in Sira, where Congress has already declared Jayachandra’s name.
Political analyst Manjunath, commenting on the prospects for the elections, said: “The ruling party has other challenges, such as cabinet expansion and the eventual replacement of Yediyurappa. The BJP will also be more concerned with winning the four legislative council seats for which elections have been announced as they lack a majority in the upper house. It is the JDS and Congress who want to prove a point in the assembly polls. While all three will obviously try to win, it is the JDS that has the most to lose should it now win any of the assembly seats. “
The Election Commission has also announced elections for four electoral districts of graduates and teachers of the Karnataka Legislative Council, which will be voted on on October 28. For the two electoral districts of the assembly, the vote will take place on November 3.
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