‘Jo darr gaya, samjho mar gaya’ – this iconic dialogue by Gabbar Singh in the Hindi film Sholay bodes well for the high-octane election battle expected in Karnataka’s Ramanagara assembly seat – the location where the blockbuster was shot.
Ramanagara, just 65 km from Bengaluru, will be fought not just between the Janata Dal (Secular) (JDS) and the Congress, but between the two politically powerful families of HD Kumaraswamy of the JDS and DK Shivakumar of the Congress.
Shivakumar has indicated that several party workers in Ramanagara have suggested that his brother and the lone Congress MP DK Suresh, representing the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency, be pitted against Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil, who is contesting from the seat on the JDS. Will contest elections on ticket.
“There has been a proposal that he (Suresh) should be fielded from Ramnagar. I am yet to discuss it in detail with Suresh and party workers. Local leaders are urging me to consider it. I need to take a careful decision as I do not want a bypoll (Lok Sabha),” said Karnataka Congress chief Shivakumar. If Suresh wins the Ramanagara seat, a by-election would have to be held in the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha seat, which he currently represents.
“Suresh will win comfortably and even JDS knows it. He has a strong hold and acceptance in the field. An internal survey has also shown that if Suresh contests, he will win with a huge margin,” said a senior Congress leader on the condition of anonymity.
JDS bastion
If Suresh contests from Ramanagara, the battle between the Vokkaligas will start afresh in a seat that has been considered a JDS stronghold and has not been broken by either party since the 1990s.
Currently, the Ramanagara assembly constituency is represented by Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha. JDS was the first political party in the state to formally announce its first list of candidates in December 2022.
Nikhil made it to the first list along with 92 other candidates, although Kumaraswamy had said in July 2022 that his 33-year-old son would not contest the 2023 assembly elections, but would instead work for the party’s victory in other constituencies.
However, the party is caught by surprise when Anita announces that Nikhil will be her successor in her constituency.
Nikhil will contest from Ramnagar. I hope and believe that the people of Ramnagar constituency will extend their love and support to him, as you have extended to me. Many people are trying to spread wrong message. To end this, I have announced the candidature of Nikhil.
This will be Nikhil’s second electoral battle after losing the Mandya seat to actress-turned-politician Sumalatha Ambareesh in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. He was a joint candidate of the Congress and the JDS, while Sumalatha was supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The JDS expects Nikhil to easily win the party’s stronghold seat, but the entry of Suresh has made the election even more challenging.
All about Ramnagar
Ramanagara district has four assembly seats, three of which are with the JDS, including Channapatna represented by HD Kumaraswamy, Ramanagara by his wife Anita and Magadi by A Manjunath. Shivakumar’s Kanakapura seat also falls in this district and the entire district comes under the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha seat, represented by DK Suresh.
The battle for Ramanagara is based on the influence of the Kumaraswamy couple and the DK brothers on the voters. It is this equation that will bring to the fore the smoldering ‘great war’ between the two politically dominant Vokkaliga families in the state. Incidentally, Ramnagar is the same place where the ruling BJP had announced that it plans to build a ‘magnificent’ Ram temple to gain a foothold in the JDS stronghold.
If Suresh contests from the Ramnagar seat, he will be pitted against Nikhil, turning into a straight fight between the HDK and the DKS – a feud that some say was sparked in 2018 when the JDS and the Congress formed a coalition government There was some struggle then. Kumaraswamy contested from two seats Channapatna and Ramanagara. Following the alliance between the two parties, Kumaraswamy, on the advice of Shivakumar, gave up the Ramanagara seat, which the JDS leader had won five times.
political rivalry
The political rivalry between Shivakumar and the Deve Gowda family goes back decades. In the 1985 assembly elections, a young Shivakumar contested for the first time on a Congress ticket against former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda from the Sathanur assembly. Shivakumar lost the election, but that was not the end of the story.
Gowda contested from two seats, Sathanur and Holenarasipura. Luck was on the side of Shivakumar as Deve Gowda chose to go with Holenarasipura and the seat went to re-election which was won by Shivakumar.
Not long after, Shivakumar fought another losing political battle against Gowda in 1989, when he contested against the former PM in Kanakapura constituency and lost. He was once again defeated by Gowda’s son Kumaraswamy in 1994 when they both contested from the Sathanur seat. In 1999, Shivakumar tasted blood when he defeated Kumaraswamy in another high-profile contest.
A disgruntled Shivakumar adopted another strategy in 2004 to outwit Goudas. Shivakumar helped the then political novice and former journalist Tejaswini Gowda win the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. Congress gave her the ticket on the last day of nomination and she emerged as the winner defeating Deve Gowda by a margin of over one lakh votes. Tejaswini is currently a BJP MLC.
impact on BJP
Fielding Suresh will also deal a severe blow to the BJP’s prospects. Shivakumar is also hoping to become the Chief Minister if the Congress does well in the upcoming elections. In order to leave behind his competition in the CM race, Shivakumar will have to help the Congress to a major victory and win a large number of seats in the old Mysore region.
The ruling BJP has also set its sights on wooing the Vokkaliga vote bank, especially in the region by using Dr. CN Ashwath Narayan, one of the BJP’s Vokkaliga strongmen.
The Vokkaligas are the second largest community in Karnataka after the Lingayats and exercise considerable influence in the electoral politics of Karnataka.
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