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The Lingayat-dominated Dharwad Lok Sabha constituency is one of the BJP’s strongholds in north Karnataka, from where Union minister Pralhad Joshi, has been winning since 2004 for four consecutive terms.
AT A TIME when sexual assault allegations against prominent JD(S) leader Prajwal Revanna have overtaken the state’s political scene, there is a new excitement in this constituency in central Karnataka for the coming elections.
Karnataka’s Shivamogga is normally considered a safe seat for the BJP, as it is the home turf of senior leader B S Yediyurappa. But this poll season, it is facing a ferocious turf war. K S Eshwarappa, a former colleague of the Chief Minister, and ex-Cabinet colleague — their association goes back four decades — has rebelled. He is contesting as an Independent after his son was denied a ticket, which went to Yediyurappa’s son and sitting BJP MP B Y Raghavendra.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar quit the BJP and joined the Congress in April 2023, just months before the elections, sending shockwaves across the party he had been associated with for decades. Though he lost the elections from his home turf Hubli-Dharwad, he was made an MLC. He returned to the BJP in January and is now its candidate from the Belgaum Lok Sabha seat that was earlier represented by his close relative and former Union Minister Suresh Angadi.
In the 14 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka that go to polls on Friday, no single overwhelming factor came to the fore during the campaign. The Modi factor, a BJP-Janata Dal (Secular) alliance, the Congress’s welfare guarantees, a high cost of living, the murder of a young woman in distant Hubbali, and the fear of the changing of the Constitution are all undercurrents at play in the region.
Patchy implementation of the welfare schemes, the recent murder of a young college girl in Hubballi, the Narendra Modi factor, and a silent mutiny by a top leader have landed the Congress on a sticky wicket in the reserved constituency of Kolar in south Karnataka that was once its bastion.
The Mysore Lok Sabha seat in the Vokkaliga-dominated South Karnataka is heading for a fierce contest as the BJP has fielded the scion of the erstwhile Mysore royal family, Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, 32, from the constituency, which is part of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s home turf. The BJP dropped its sitting MP Pratap Simha to bring in Yaduveer Wadiyar. Simha had won the seat in the 2014 and 2019 polls by defeating the Congress candidates by over 31,000 votes and about 1.38 lakh votes respectively.
At the gram panchayat office of Keragodu village — known for its multitude of temples dedicated to different deities — 14 km from the district headquarters of Mandya in south Karnataka, the Tricolour is hoisted on a newly-erected 108-ft-tall flagpole. Lower down, within a hand’s reach, are saffron Hanuman flags tied temporarily to the post.