Three more Sumalathas to take on Sumalatha in Mandya constituency

BENGALURU/MANDYA:

Actor Sumalatha Ambareesh

will not only have to contend with chief minister

HD Kumaraswamy’s son

Nikhil Kumaraswamy in the general election from Mandya; she will also have to make sure that voters identify her correctly on the electronic voter machines when they vote on April 18.

Here’s why: Three other contestants named Sumalatha filed their nominations on Tuesday to contest the election from the constituency.

Sumalatha Siddegowda from Ranganatha Layout in Kanakapura;

Sumalatha Manjegowda

is a resident of Goravi village in KR Pete; a third candidate, S Sumalatha, from TM Hosur village, is an active JD(S) member who was president of the Srirangapatna taluk panchayat. It was not immediately clear whether the first two are members of a political party.

The trio asked for the same symbols that the actor did: a sugarcane farmer, a man blowing a turha and a coconut farm, in that order of preference. Sumalatha is said to be particular about the symbol of a farmer with stacks of sugarcane on his head to counter the JD(S) symbol of a woman carrying a stack of hay. Supporters of Sumalatha and fans of her husband, the late actor MH Ambareesh, sniffed a conspiracy in Tuesday’s developments.

“Three namesakes entering the fray on the last day of filing nominations and all of them asking for the same symbols that

Sumalatha Ambareesh

did suggests that it is a well-thoughtout plan by our political opponents to spoil our candidate’s chances,” said an Ambareesh fan from Mandya.

‘HDK acting like a dictator’

Meanwhile, in KRS on Tuesday, Sumalatha accused chief minister HD Kumaraswamy of behaving like a dictator and abusing his power to disrupt her election meetings in Mandya.

Referring to repeated power cuts at her public rallies in Mandya, Sumalatha demanded to know why power outages occurred only at her meetings and not at the rallies of Kumaraswamy and his son Nikhil.

“The Mandya SP dashed off a letter to Chescom asking it to ensure uninterrupted power supply in Mandya on the day Nikhil filed his nomination papers,” she said. “He even asked them to be ready with a contingency plan in case of an unexpected outage. How could a police officer write a letter to help Kumaraswamy when the poll code says every political leader should be treated as an ordinary person? Is it not a testimony to how Kumaraswamy is misusing his power?”

Charging the state government with spying on her, Sumalatha alleged that her phone was tapped.

Swaraj India backs Sumalatha

Swaraj India on Tuesday announced its unconditional support to Sumalatha. In a meeting chaired by Sunita Puttannaiah and other farmer leaders in Mandya, the party unanimously decided to support Sumalatha’s candidature.

“We have decided to support Sumalatha in the hope that she will represent farmers and their concerns in parliament,” Pattannaiah said.