Hindutva and caste calculations overtake issues of drought and backwardness in north Karnataka
Under a scorching sun and amid a severe drought, 14 constituencies in northern and central Karnataka are going to the polls on May 7. Complaints about regional imbalances and unkept promises — especially related to irrigation projects — are an undercurrent, though constantly overshadowed by communal narratives and a blame game between parties in the last leg of the campaign.
The emergence of rightwing activism in the aftermath of the 1992 Idgah riots in Hubballi and the subsequent political realignment in the region, with members of the Janata Parivar shifting to the saron party, has severely aected the Congress’s prospects in the region. The party’s eorts to regain its glory have not yielded big results yet.
In the 2004, 2009, and 2014 elections, the Congress never got more than three seats out of the total 14. Despite aligning with the Janata Dal(S) in 2019, the Congress was washed out in the region, with the BJP making a clean sweep. Under the changed political equations, the JD(S) has tied up with the BJP this time around, but is not contesting any seats in this region.
The BJP candidates are heavily dependent on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity and, in certain pockets, the Hindutva agenda. The Congress is trying to minimise its eect by using its “new guarantee card” and highlighting the “meagre drought relief” from the Centre for which it had to approach the Supreme Court.
New names, old issues
North Karnataka was broadly categorised into Hyderabad Karnataka and Bombay (Mumbai) Karnataka, now renamed Kalyana Karnataka and Kittur Karnataka, respectively. The change in name has not changed the issues. For instance, out of 39 taluks across Karnataka identied as “most backward” by the D.M. Najundappa Committee report on regional imbalances, 26 are from north Karnataka. The situation in these taluks has not changed much. Important
issues, such as the promise of making the Upper Krishna Project a national project, still remain a dream.
A host of national- and State-level leaders have addressed scores of rallies across this region, but very few have spoken about the debilitating drought and water scarcity that the region has been suering from since the 2022 kharif season. Any debate on the lack of industries or other means of employment in north Karnataka, compared with the south, is also not to be heard.
The issues that are being raised instead, are the castes and sub-castes of candidates, the murder of student Neha Hiremath on a college campus in Hubballi, and the Bengaluru cafe blast case, used to speak of wider threats to national security. Over the past few days, though the JD(S) is not a big force to reckon with in most parts of north Karnataka, the alleged sex scandal involving party leader Prajwal Revanna has somewhat shifted focus from the Neha Hiremath murder.
Under pressure to make inroads into these constituencies which have remained with the BJP, the Congress has elded many children and relatives of Ministers in this election.
Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge has taken on the task of getting his sonin-law Radhakrishan Doddamani elected from his home constituency of Kalaburagi.
Two ex-Chief Ministers — Jagadish Shettar and Basavaraj Bommai — are contesting Lok Sabha elections for the rst time on BJP ticket. Union Minister Pralhad Joshi is striving for reelection and so are former Union Minister Ramesh Jigajinagi and P.C. Gaddigoudar, MP. Another former Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa is under pressure to get his son B.Y. Raghavendra elected, amid a rebellion by his one-time party colleague K.S. Eshwarappa.
(With inputs from Rishikesh Bahadur Desai and Kumar Buradikatti)