Reddy aide adds heat to Badami battle Caste played key role in BJP ticket for Sriramulu
KEY CONTEST While Siddaramaiah is contesting from Chamundeshwari as well, Sriramulu’s other seat is Molkalmuru NEARLY A QUARTER OF THE ELECTORATE IN BADAMI HAILS FROM THE KURUBA (SHEPHERDS) COMMUNITY, THE SAME
AS SIDDARAMAIAH
BENGALURU: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday nominated tribal leader B Sriramulu as its candidate from the Badami seat in Karnataka’s Bagalkot district, where he will go up against chief minister Siddaramaiah in the May 12 polls.
Sriramulu, an aide of mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy, has already filed his nomination from the Molkalmuru constituency in Chitradurga. Like Siddaramaiah, who is also contesting from Chamundeshwari in Mysuru district, Sriramulu is set to contest two seats.
Addressing the media after filing his nomination in Badami, Sriramulu said he was bowing to the party high command’s decision. “I want to thank BJP national president Amit Shah and state president BS Yeddyurappa for fielding me from here. Yeddyurappa should become the chief minister and the BJP should win 150 seats and I am here to help the party in this effort,” Sriramulu said.
“There is no calculation behind this decision it only matters how much service you have done for the people,” Sriramulu said. “The election in this state is akin to the battle of Mahabharata, between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. We will definitely win this,” he added. Analysts say Sriramulu is likely to give a tough fight to the CM.
Nearly a quarter of the elector- ate in Badami hails from the Kuruba (traditional shepherds) community, the same as Siddaramaiah. The other big bloc of votes are the Lingayat community, which continues to be divided over the recently granted religion status.
However, dissidence within the Congress might hurt the CM. The sitting MLA BB Chimanakatti was denied a ticket and the Congress originally declared Devraj Patil as its Badami candidate. Though Patil has been mollified with promise of an MLC seat in the future, there is friction between the Chimankatti and Patil factions after the CM declared his intention to contest from here. Siddaramaiah, who filed his papers after having lunch at Chimankatti’s residence, has tried his best to bring both factions together.
In addition, Mahantesh Gurupadappa Mamadapur the Janata Dal (Secular) candidate who lost by a small margin in 2013, has joined the BJP, giving it a boost in Badami. BJP state general secretary Shobha Karandlaje has claimed that 20 of the 26 taluk panchayats and a majority of the gram panchayat seats in Badami are under the BJP’S control.
Also, the collective vote of the erstwhile Karnataka Janata Paksha (KJP, and the Badavara Shramikara Raitara Congress (both started by leaders who had left the BJP but have since merged with the saffron party) and the JD(S) was more than that of Congress in the 2013 assembly election. Scheduled Tribes are the second biggest bloc of voters in the constituency and Sriramulu being an ST himself might help the BJP.
But the chief minister has dismissed any such speculation. “People of the region had pressured the high command, which asked me to contest from here, and I am bowing to this decision,” he said.
When asked if the worry over losing was behind the decision, Siddaramaiah said, “Didn’t the prime minister contest from two seats in 2014, (JD(S) chief) HD Deve Gowda has similarly contested two seats in the past and (former chief minister) HD Kumaraswamy is contesting from two seats this time. Are they running scared as well?” BENGALURU: When 47-year-old B Sriramulu filed his nomination from Molkalmuru in Karnataka’s Chitradurga district, last week, he was accompanied by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) chief ministerial candidate BS Yeddyurappa and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had specially flown in for the occasion.
The incident underlined the importance of Sriramulu, who is also contesting from Badami against CM Siddaramaiah.
Two decades ago, Sriramulu, the seventh among eight children of a railway employee, was virtually unknown. What propelled him to limelight were two events. First was and continues to be his close friendship with Gali Janardhana Reddy, one of the most powerful men in the state. The second was when foreign minister Sushma Swaraj contested the 1999 Lok Sabha polls against then Congress chief Sonia Gandhi from Ballari. His friendship with Reddy, the controversial former BJP minister and mining baron, is legendary. Such is their closeness that Sriramulu is popularly known as the ‘fourth Reddy brother’ apart from Karunakara, Janardhana and Somashekara.
While Swaraj lost to Gandhi, Sriramulu and Reddy’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed by the saffron party’s high command.
Caste also palyed a key role in Sriramulu’s rise as he belongs to the Valmiki Nayaka community, classified as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) in Karnataka. Sriramulu contested his first election in 2004 and since then, has never lost an election. Once named in a report on mining irregularities, he formed his own party called Badavara Sharmikara Raithara Congress Party (BSRCP) which contested the 2013 state elections but won only four seats. In between, he also contested as an independent, won and then declared he had been cleared in a “people’s court”.
BSriramulu is being billed as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s tribal face in Karnataka. Naturally, some of the party’s stalwarts, including its CM candidate BS Yeddyurappa and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, accompanied him when he filed his nomination from the Molkalmuru seat in Chitradurga district. Also present was Sriramulu’s close friend and confidant Gali Janardhana Reddy, a controversial former BJP minister, who spent three years in jail over illegal mining cases. After filing the nomination, Chouhan committed a gaffe when he cited the mining scam as an example of corruption by the current Congress government. While Reddy managed to maintain a blasé look, some in the crowd tittered
WDespite many gurus and seers publicly expressing their wish to contest elections and try to emulate the success of, say, a Yogi Adityanth, major parties in Karnataka, which have actively wooed them for endorsements, have steered clear of handing them tickets.
The only seer to contest is Lakshmivara Teertha, the pontiff of Shiroor Mutt, one of the eight powerful mutts in Udupi. Lakshmivara is contesting elections as an independent after failing to convince the BJP to give him a ticket from Udupi. The BJP has fielded K Raghupati Bhat a former MLA from the party as its candidate.
A colorful Swami who is known for his passion for bikes, karate, swimming and playing musical instruments, Lakshmivara will be taking on sitting MLA Pramod Madhwaraj of the Congress party, who is currently the minister of state for youth services, fisheries and animal husbandry. ith CM Siddaramaiah filing his nomination from Badami, apart from Chamundeshwari, it is clear that he will be contesting two seats. Since R Gundu Rao, the then Congress CM, was defeated in a giant-slaying act by Janata Party’s Jeevanjaya in 1983 from Sowmarapet, senior politicians have tried not to take chances.
Siddaramaiah is not the first CM to contest two seats. Two other former CMS of Karnataka, HD Deve Gowda and S Bangarappa have fought from two constituencies at the same time. In fact Deve Gowda has done it twice. In 1985, Deve Gowda fought from Holenarasipura and Sathanur. He won from both constituencies. Howeverm when Deve Gowda repeated this by contesting again from both seats in 1989, he was defeated in both. In 2008, Karnataka’s 12th CM, Bangarappa contested from both Soraba and Shikaripura. While he won Soraba handsomely, he was defeated in Shikaripura by B S Yeddyurappa. The Janata Dal(secular) CM nominee HD Kumaraswamy is also contesting from seats, Channapatna and Ramnagara.