Karnataka polls: JD(S) seeks to draw first blood, ropes in 20 Congress workers from Siddaramaiah's Chamundeshwari constituency

Bangalore: A week after Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah announced he will contest from Chamundeshwari constituency in Mysuru, the Janata Dal (Secular) which holds the seat, is trying to dent his chances of victory by roping in Congress party workers. On Wednesday, the JD(S) announced that 20 Congress workers in the constituency, including block-level leaders like Kaling Naik, Angadi Manju, and MH Rajashekar were joining the party. [caption id=“attachment_4383669” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah. Twitter@siddaramaiah[/caption] G T Devegowda, the JD(S) MLA from Chamundeshwari constituency, said that Congress workers were not happy with Siddaramaiah’s leadership and were defecting only because they intend to see HD Kumaraswamy as chief minister. JD(S)’s claim may not prove to be a setback for the Congress, but it is bound to impact party’s campaign strategy. The Congress, however, believes it to be part and parcel of a normal campaign season. However, the JD(S) Seems to be sending a message to the Grand Old Party not to mess with the Vokkaliga vote bank in its stronghold in the south Karnataka region. Incidentally, it was the Chamundeshwari Assembly seat from where Siddaramaiah registered his first election victory way back in 1983. He has won the constituency five times and been defeated twice. It was only after the delimitation in 2008, when most of the villages that formed Siddaramaiah’s support base fell under the neighbouring constituency of Varuna, that he had to switch constituencies. He consequently won the Assembly elections from Varuna in 2008 and 2013. The last time Siddaramaiah contested from Chamundeswari was in the 2006 by-election that was necessitated after his split with JDS. He contested on a Congress ticket and won by a margin of 257 votes. The Congress seems confident that Siddaramaiah will win Chamundeshwari. His decision to contest comes after JD(S) party supremo HD Kumaraswamy challenged him, saying the chief minister he wouldn’t stand a chance of winning if he contested from Chamundeswari. “Claiming to be secular, the chief minister has made some Vokkaliga leaders express support for him and  accused us of being opportunists. The fact that these statements are coming from certain Vokkaliga leaders show they are not playing on secular lines. This shows Siddaramaiah’s weakness. So, if they think they can win all Vokkaliga votes by such tactics, they are wrong,” he said. Commenting on the development, a KPCC spokesperson said the party is not bothered as none of the defectors are prominent leaders. “One of them, Mahadevaswamy, until recently the Zilla Congress secretary, was a long-time associate of ex-finance minister of Karnataka M Rajasekhara Murthy. He left the party after Murthy’s death, but joined again later during Mallikarjunan Karge’s tenure as Union minister for railways. Even then, he did not hold any important position. So, these are not familiar faces and are far removed from the first and second line of leaders,” he said. Indeed, unlike former minister V Srinivas Prasad’s move to the BJP or Adagur H Vishwanath’s surprise move to JD(S) last year, which came as a shock to the Congress, there seem to be no high-profile defectors. Both men were important Congress leaders in Mysuru. Incidents such as Wednesday’s defection are usually seen as a fallout of big earlier shifts. “Sometimes, their followers take a while before following their leaders to new parties,” the Congress source said. Professor Muzaffar Azadi from the department of Political Science, Mysore University, said Siddaramaiah won’t have any problems in this constituency as it has always been a prestigious seat for him, and it prides itself on being his constituency. JD(S) only recently suffered a setback in the Mysuru region when seven of its rebel MLAs were inducted into the Congress in the presence of party chief Rahul Gandhi who had been campaigning there. However, the shift hadn’t been a surprise as the intentions of these seven MLAs had been known for sometime. The authors are Bengaluru-based journalists and members of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroot reporters.