Two bypolls in Karnataka at Nanjangud and Gundlupete, which are going to poll on April 9, have become a straight battle between two popular leaders of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of the Congress and the lingayat leader, BS Yeddyurappa, of the BJP. Even though Karnataka has just a year ahead to go to Assembly elections in 2018, these by polls have become a battlefield of egos of the two parties which are striving hard to prove their existence.
Siddaramaiah, who is playing the backward classes appeasement politics to the hilt, is taken it so seriously that he has been campaigning along with all the top leaders of his party and Ministers for over a week. Siddaramaiah, who is facing the anti-incumbency wave confident of winning these elections but says the results was not a referendum on his rule.
People question the high voltage campaign by the parties and find this little strange that for the first time a Chief Minister is campaigning aggressively for more than a week along with his Cabinet colleagues to win these by polls looks to be an indicator to the coming elections to the Karnataka Assembly in 2018. Congress has Karnataka in its kitty so far as the only big State in power in the country and it is crucial for the century old party to keep its hold intact.
The image of the ruling Congress has been dented with many controversial issues. Siddaramaiah and other top leaders projecting four years of development work of the Government to garner votes. The Congress campaign is also focusing on the 1993 caste violence between lingayats and Dalits in Badanawalu village to upset the new political alignment of the BJP, the Dalit and lingayat combination. People in the two constituencies say 20 Ministers of the Siddaramaiah Cabinet are camping but Yeddyurappa’s rallies are seen to be better organised and well attended. The BJP hopes to convert them as the votes.
For the BJP and its State president Yeddyurappa these two bypolls are the indicators to the general polls in 2018. Yeddyurappa as part of the UP model has been doing a new social engineering to garner the votes both now and for the 2018 elections. For the first time Yeddyurappa has succeeded in bringing Dalits and dominant and upper caste lingayats into one fold to a new political equation which will play a major role in these by polls as well as to complete the mission 150 a target set by the BJP’s national president Amit Shah to make ‘Congress-Mukt’ Karnataka. Yeddyurappa said, “We have succeeded in bringing two communities, Dalits and lingayats together to fight the Congress. This is a new equation in Karnataka politics. We are going to win these two by polls and also we are preparing ground to defeat the Congress in the 2018 elections”.
After UP Chief Minister Aditya Nath Yogi ’s decision to waive farm loans, Yeddyurappa is promising the farm loans waiver, a challenge he has been posing to the Congress.
In both the Constituencies Nanjangudu and Gundalpete its Siddaramaiah and Yeddyurappa have been waging a war to consolidate their positions. Even though Siddaramaiah has been leading the charge of the party, the insiders in his party feel “he is always an outsider.”
The party bogged down with desertions and rebellion has taken a beating and many in the party started questioning Siddaramaiah’s leadership.
The desertion of a dalit leader V Srinivas Prasad who is contesting from BJP at Nanjangudu and SM Krishna and host of others have been a pain for the party.
For Yeddyurappa who is projected as the future Chief Minister by Amit Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it’s his best bet on the hot seat. Even though he had some turbulence within the party he wants to consolidate his position by proving a point.
In both the places it is a direct fight between Congress and the BJP as JDS did not contest. The election for the Gundalpete constituency is being held because of the untimely demise of HS Mahadeva Prasad and in Nanjangud because of Srinivas Prasad who quit the Congress. In both the places Dalits and lingayat votes are crucial as they have majority.