Karnataka bypolls: BJP’s disqualified MLA swims against the tide

CHIKKABALLAPURA: Since 1957, when

Chikkaballapura

assembly constituency was formed, the total votes polled by the BJP has been about 30,000. The highest gains it made was in 2008, when the saffron wave in Karnataka was at its strongest. The party candidate polled 16,797 votes and finished fourth.


Cut to 2019 and the BJP is riding on the individual strength of disqualified MLA and party nominee

K Sudhakar

to rustle up their first ever win in the segment. But Sudhakar himself admits he is “swimming against the tide” as the BJP has literally no cadre base in the constituency.

“I’m fighting a lone battle and building cadre on my own,” Sudhakar said. “Party men are backing me, but there is only so much they can do. However, I am confident people will back me for the development work I have done.”

Campaigning in one village after another, Sudhakar is trying to drive home the point that he is “a local”, while his opponents from the Congress and JD(S) are “outsiders”. While Congress candidate M Anjanappa is based in

Devanahalli

, JD(S) candidate N Radha Krishna is from the adjoining

Sidlaghatta

constituency.

Since Krishna is also a relative of JD(S) patriarch HD Deve Gowda, Sudhakar is trying to make “swabhimana” (pride) an issue. “The only reason Krishna is in the fray is because he is a relative of HD Kumaraswamy [wife Anitha’s cousin] and a moneybag. The JD(S) is spending crores,” Sudhakar alleged.

Krishna dismissed the allegations as “baseless” and accused Sudhakar of trying to vitiate the political atmosphere. “I admit I am a relative of Gowda, but that is not the reason why I was given the ticket,” Krishna said. “Our former MLA KP Bachchegowda [who was initially named the candidate] himself appealed to me to contest, citing his waning influence over the constituency. The party needed fresh blood.”

Krishna says Sudhakar’s name invokes fury among locals as the former MLA “is known to foist false cases” against opponents and misuse local police to silence dissenting voices. The JD(S) aspirant claimed the byelections was a direct fight between Sudhakar and the “combined” opposition of the Congress and the JD(S), hinting at a tacit understanding between the two. Sources suggest one of them will make way for the other, 48 hours before polling, to ensure Sudhakar’s defeat.

The Congress is heavily dependent on

Vokkaliga

strongman DK Shivakumar, who has a huge “fan following” among the 45,000-odd voters. Shivakumar also shares an “excellent” rapport with the Gowda family, which lends credence to the theory that the two parties working in tandem.

But Sudhakar said, “Both Kumaraswamy and Shivakumar cannot digest the rise of a young Vokkaliga leader. This is basically why I was forced to quit the Congress.”