BJPJD(S) ‘secret pact’ worries Cong
KARNATAKA SEATS Party rife with speculations that BJP may prop up a ‘weak candidate’ to topple Siddaramaiah’s Chamundeshwari bid BENGALURU:
Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s jibe last month that the Janata Dal (Secular) was nothing more than the ‘B’ team of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may come back to bite his party, with supporters indicating at a “secret pact” between the two opposition groups that may want to ensure the defeat of chief minister Siddaramaiah and his son Yathindra.
Siddaramaiah will contest from the Chamundeshwari seat, after having vacated the Varuna seat, which he won in 2008 and 2013, to his son Yathindra.
In Chamundeshwari, Siddaramaiah will square off against his former aide GT Deve Gowda of the JD(S), while in Varuna, Yathindra is set to contest BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, BS Yeddyurappa’s son Vijayendra, although the party is yet to formally announce his candidacy.
The proxy war in Varuna between Siddaramaiah and Yeddyurappa, through their sons, has been much talked about. However, what is also being said by workers of all three parties is that the BJP may field a weak candidate in Chamundeshwari, to ensure Deve Gowda’s victory.
A senior JD(S) leader said that while he was not aware of any pact in Chamundeshwari, the party’s candidate in Varuna, Abhishek, had not been very active since Vijayendra landed up in the constituency. “Party workers are telling me that he has gone missing since Vijayendra came to the constituency.”
In fact, the JD(S)’s choice of candidate in Varuna was seen a clever move as Abhishek is a Lingayat and the constituency has a sizable population of members of the sect. “We thought he would be able to nullify the effect of Siddaramaiah’s move to recognise Lingayats as a religious minority,” the leader said.
In Chamundeshwari, though, the local BJP leaders are hoping that the party will field a strong candidate. “As a national party, we must show that we mean business,” said a leader from the local district unit. “However, I am not aware of any pact. Let’s see who the party chooses for the seat,” he said. BJP is yet to name candidates for the two seats.
The Congress believes now that it has been vindicated in its stance that the BJP and JD(S) had already struck up an alliance. State Congress working president Dinesh Gundu Rao said the pact was not secret at all. “We had received information that they had held talks and it is not just these two seats, such pacts are being made across the state by the parties to ensure their victory.”
Political analyst Narendar Pani, faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, said there was nothing new about such pacts. He said there seemed to be a personal pact between JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy and Congress leader and energy minister DK Shivakumar to defeat the BJP candidate in Channapatna in Ramnagara district.
“These pacts are generally personal and not at the party level, except for the one that seems to have been put in place in Varuna and Chamundeshwari,” Pani said. “There is clear antipathy for both parties against Siddaramaiah. But any consolidation of these dominant caste votes will play into the hands of Siddaramaiah,” he said. Pani was referring to the Vokkaligas in Chamundeshwari and the Lingayats in Varuna. “Siddaramaiah is projecting himself as the person who challenged these groups’ control.”
To insure himself against such a pact Siddaramiah is said to be contemplating contesting from a second seat of Badami in North Karnataka. Though Congress announced a candidate from Badami, he has not filed his nomination yet. Congress is trying to checkmate what it believes is a nefarious secret understanding between its opponents.
Three contestants in the upcoming May 12 assembly polls in Karnataka will vouch for this. Former BJP ministers in the B S Yeddyurappa cabinet, S Ramdas (Krishnara constituency from Mysuru), M P Renukacharya (Honalli from Davangere district) and former Congress minister in Siddaramaiah’s cabinet HY Meti (Bagalkot), are being haunted by their past.
Premakumari a government employee who claims that Ramdas was secretly married to her, has vowed to contest against him. Ramdas a RSS pracharak before becoming an MLA, attempted to commit suicide when those allegations first surfaced. He has welcomed her decision to contest against him.
Similarly ‘Nurse’ Jayalakshmi whose intimate photos with then minister Renukacharya created a controversy, has said that she would contest from the ‘Mahila Empowerment Party’ and even against her former friend if the party wants her to.
HY Meti who had to resign from Siddaramaiah’s cabinet after a government employee Vijayalakshmi claimed that he sought sexual favours for a transfer, may have to face her at the hustings. Vijayalakshmi wants to contest against the former minister to ‘teach him a lesson.’
Vengeance may be a dish best served cold, but it sure is heating up things in the Karnataka elections.