Cracks are showing in Deve Gowda’s citadel
A village road with a divider is unusual enough. But a five-storied under construction new temple, solar street lights, a government residential complex and the village park strewn with remnants of an evening party make for definite signs that Haradanahalli, in Holenarsipura taluk of Hassan district, is no ordinary village.
Haradanahalli is where the story of the most influential political clan of Karnataka, which is currently fighting one of its toughest political battles, started with the birth of Haradanahalli Doddegowda, or HD, Deve Gowda in 1933 in the house of a humble paddy cultivator.
With the family patriarch ageing, his successor and son HD Kumaraswamy not keeping well, and palpable anger against his other son HD Revanna in the family pocket borough of Holenarsipura, which the latter has represented four times since 1994, and the next generation still being groomed, the clan is seemingly in decline.
Nestled in the Sahyadri hills, dotted by several Suzlon wind turbines, and a vibrant industrial complex on either side of the highway, Holenarsipura has benefitted from the rise of the Deve Gowda clan, which has built an intricate network of caste loyalties and patronage among government officials and the private sector.
But if the clan is busy plotting the downfall of its erstwhile ally turned foe Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the Chamundeshwari constituency, the Congress leader has also taken the fight to his erstwhile mentor Deve Gowda, and family. A loss for Revanna in Holenarispura is unthinkable. Deve Gowda, with the support of his Vokkaliga and some other castes, represented the seat as an Independent in 1962 and 1967, as a Congress (O) candidate in 1972, and then as a Janata Party leader from 1978 to 1989. In 1989, as the former prime minister told Business Standard recently, his protégé G Puttaswamy Gowda “backstabbed” him.
The talk in Holenarsipura's village squares and street corners is that the they could be on the cusp of the 'unthinkable' -the beginning of the decline of the Deve Gowda clan. Revanna has only once lost the seat in the last 24 years. He first won the seat in 1994 by taking his father’s revenge upon sitting legislator G Puttaswamy Gowda, but lost the subsequent election in 1999. He has been winning successively since 2004, defeating Congress’ SG Anupama by a big margin of over 30,000 votes in both 2008 and 2013. But the ground is shifting. The region suffered three successive years of drought in the last four years. Holenarsipura is situated on the banks of Hemavati, a tributary of Kaveri, whose reservoir in Holenarsipura had no water and unfortunately for Revanna, the pain of the drought years isn’t being blamed on the Siddaramaiah government.
People complain Revanna, who they believe has pots of money, should have done more. Some are merely keen to try out a new person. Many of the poor, including among the Vokkaligas, speak glowingly of Siddaramaiah for his Anna Bhagya, or food subsidy, scheme. “Who can imagine how many might have died of hunger if not for Anna Bhagya during the drought years,” Topamma, an elderly woman in the predominantly Vokkaliga village of Ongere, said. Range Gowda, a tea shop owner at the crossroads some distance from the village is a committed Janata Dal (Secular), or ‘Dala’, voter.