Will Siddaramaiah strike gold when he stands for the Kolar assembly seat this election year or will his political fortunes run out like the famous Kolar Gold Fields located next to this constituency?
Kolar has become a hot seat ever since the Leader of the Opposition and former chief minister announced his intention to contest from the seat only if the party high command “agrees”.
Siddaramaiah has pinned his hopes on the people of Kolar and brought the Congress to power in the state.
But former BJP Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa does not believe so. He has made a political prediction that “Siddaramaiah will not contest from Kolar at any cost.” “He is just indulging in drama. He will try to come to Mysore. If he contests this election from Kolar, he will not be able to win the seat.
So, what’s all the fuss about Kolar?
According to political analysts, the war of words between the BJP and the Congress is pure political drama and the election battle will be seen on the ground when leaders and party workers take to the streets to garner support from voters.
Karnataka BJP spokesperson and former MLC Captain Ganesh Karnik said that Kolar will not accept Siddaramaiah. “For a person like Siddaramaiah, who has been the chief minister of the state for five years, and is the leader of the opposition, it is difficult to find a constituency to contest. This is unacceptable to the people,” Karnik told News18.
Well-known political analyst Sandeep Shastri says that he feels that the BJP is trying to make the Congress difficult and is pushing the debate into a contest. Through this, they want to create discomfort for the Leader of the Opposition.
“If Mr. Siddaramaiah contests from Kolar, which he is most likely to do, the BJP will discuss the issue. They are raising the issue that if the leader of the opposition is not getting a safe seat for himself then how can the Congress imagine coming to power? BJP is taking advantage of the situation and making it an issue.
On November 14, 2022, when Siddaramaiah got into his swanky new ultra-luxury election bus and traveled to Kolar, he had indicated his plan to make it the assembly seat of his choice. But there were several reasons why Siddaramaiah took this decision – caste matrix and logistics in the region.
As of 2011 India census, Kolar has around 2.5 lakh voters.
In this region, Vokkaligas make up about 40% of the vote, followed by backward classes and Dalits at about 35%. Muslims are also a deciding factor in a candidate’s winnability as they constitute close to 14% of the voting population. According to internal Congress surveys, there are around 30,000 Kuruba voters in Kolar, the community to which Siddaramaiah belongs.
Another Bengaluru-based political analyst A Narayana from Azim Premji University says, “The BJP sees it as a BJP versus Siddaramaiah fight in Kolar, rather than BJP versus Congress.”
Narayan says there are two questions – should Siddaramaiah contest and will he contest from Kolar after all?
“To answer the first, why not? And for the second question, I think several factors contribute to it, including the final decision of the Congress high command and the pull factor from Varun,” Narayan said.
Siddaramaiah is also counting on the support of Kolar’s sitting MLA Srinivasa Gowda, who recently switched allegiance from the JDS to the Congress. He is vacating the seat for Siddaramaiah to contest and the Congress hopes that Gowda will also swing his vote in favor of Siddaramaiah.
Srinivasa Gowda, who belongs to the Vokkaliga, has won the Kolar seat four times and is known as a ‘soft corner’ for the Congress. This was seen when Gowda voted in favor of the Congress’s Rajya Sabha candidate in 2002 and is now expected to officially join the party after his fallout with the JDS.
The BJP alleged that Gowda did not voluntarily give up his seat, but “the Congress seat for Kolar assembly constituency was for sale and Siddaramaiah had bought it by agreeing to clear his loan dues of Rs 17.5 crore to Gowda”. , which he had borrowed.” last assembly elections. This allegation has been made by BJP’s state general secretary and MLC N Ravikumar.
Another major reason for choosing Kolar was that it was logically closer to Siddaramaiah’s current seat, Badami, which is 452 km from Bengaluru while the former is only 82 km away.
Earlier in an interview to News18, Siddaramaiah had said that he has not been able to pay enough attention to his people in Badami. “I may be old but I still have a lot of energy left in me. However, I have not been able to go there (Badami) regularly and it is only fair that I decide on a seat where I go regularly. I can give my full attention.
In his Badami seat too, Siddaramaiah managed to win by a narrow margin of 1,696 votes against BJP’s B Sriramulu.
Siddaramaiah is so excited about his chances of winning from Kolar that during a media interaction he said that even if the Prime Minister Narendra Modi Union Minister Amit Shah should campaign for the election, his victory is certain.
He had said, “Let (BJP national general secretary) BL Santosh, BJP national president JP Nadda, Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Union Home Minister Amit Shah come and campaign against me, I will definitely win from Kolar.”
A senior Congress leader, who was part of the core team that assessed whether Kolar was the right decision for the former Congress chief minister, said the leader is now adamant on contesting from Kolar.
“KH Muniyappa has also come on board and the differences have been sorted out,” the leader said. Muniyappa is a seven-time Congress MP from the Congress Lok Sabha seat, which he lost in the last parliamentary election. “He was quite upset with Siddaramaiah for sidelining his supporters and giving space to his loyalists in Kolar. He had also complained to the Congress high command about being sidelined, but all is well now.
Another Karnataka BJP leader said, “Don’t be surprised if he (Siddaramaiah) decides to skip Kolar at the last minute and contest from Varuna.” Siddaramaiah’s son Yatindra is currently the MLA from Varuna.
“Within the Congress, Siddaramaiah is facing opposition and Muniyappa is not at all comfortable with him contesting from there. Kolar is a strong Vokkaliga belt and the way Siddaramaiah is treating Vokkaliga strongman DK Shivakumar has also not gone down well with the Vokkaliga,” the leader said.
Insiders in the Siddaramaiah camp say that Yathindra has expressed his disinterest in contesting the upcoming assembly polls for his father, but a final decision is yet to be taken, say sources.
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