Kharge, BSY's son, AK Hegde add spice to third phase poll in Karnataka

Congress veteran Mallikarjun Kharge is engaged in the toughest battle of his political career in the Kalburgi Lok Sabha constituency, and he will be nervous like never before when the second and final phase of polling for 14 Parliament seats are held on Tuesday.

Kharge, who hails from north Karnataka, has been elected to the Karnataka Assembly nine consecutive times from 1972 to 2009 before he made it to the Parliament twice. He has never lost any election so far and earned the sobriquet, ‘Solillada saradara’ (undefeated leader), which is now under severe threat.

When he was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2014, the Congress party bestowed on him the honour of being the floor leader of the party, though he was not given the status of the Leader of the Opposition as the Congress had returned with its lowest tally in Lok Sabha of 44 seats. But, he proved his mettle by taking on the might of the treasury benches, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Kharge believes that the BJP is targeting him in this election and going all out to defeat him because of his confrontations with PM Modi both inside Parliament and outside, a charge which cannot be dismissed easily.

Dr Umesh Jadhav, a Congress MLA from Chincholi, had been identified by the BJP nearly a year ago to take on Kharge. Though Jadhav continued to deny it, he was eventually drafted into the BJP on the eve of elections. Jadhav faced some anxious moments as the Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar delayed accepting his resignation till the eleventh hour, but eventually did.

Kharge is banking on his development works in the region, including starting an ESI hospital and sanctioning a railway coach factory when he was railway minister for a brief period during the UPA government. He also claims credit for bringing special status to the north Karnataka region with the inclusion of 371(J) in the Constitution.

But, he has made several enemies within his party by promoting his son Priyank Kharge, a second-time minister in the coalition government. Other senior leaders like Malakaiah Guttedar, Baburao Chinchansoor and Malaka Reddy – who always backed him in his political career – have quit Congress and joined BJP to support Umesh Jadhav. But, Kharge believes that his good work in the constituency will see him through this time as well.

In another important contest during this phase, state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa’s son, BY Raghavendra is fighting to retain his Shivamogga seat against Madhu Bangarappa, son of late chief minister S Bangarappa. In the by-election held six months ago after Yeddyurappa moved to the Assembly, Raghavendra had defeated Madhu by 52,000 votes – a far cry from the 3.3 lakh margin of victory Yeddyurappa had secured in 2014.

The Congress and JD(S) leaders are determined to defeat Raghavendra to demoralise Yeddyurappa, who is dreaming of toppling the coalition government soon after the Lok Sabha polls and returning as chief minister. The Deve Gowda family is thirsting for ‘revenge’ against BJP for giving a torrid time to Nikhil Kumaraswamy in Mandya by supporting Sumalatha Ambareesh’s candidature.

Union Minister Ananthkumar Hegde, who made the controversial statement about changing the Constitution, and often gets into trouble because of his strong Hindutva comments, is looking for his sixth term from Uttara Kannada constituency.

Everybody wants to defeat him, but he remains quite popular among the people and probably, one candidate who spends the least amount of money during elections. Congress has given this seat to Anand Asnotikar of the JD(S), who is unlikely to stop Hegde from entering Parliament again.

In Ballary, VS Ugrappa of the Congress, after surprising everyone just six months ago, appears to be struggling now as the Congress camp is in complete disarray with MLAs Nagendra, Bhima Naik, Anand Singh and GN Ganesh already having one foot in the BJP and the infamous ‘bottle war’ between Anand Singh and Ganesh in a resort having tarnished the party’s image in the district.

The BJP is fully exploiting the fratricidal war between Satish Jarkhiholi and Ramesh Jarkhiholi in the Congress. Ever since Satish replaced Ramesh in the Kumaraswamy government at the instance of Siddaramaiah, Ramesh is breathing fire and the Congress is unable to control him.

The BJP is depending on Ramesh Jarkhiholi to retain Belgaum and snatch Chikkodi from the Congress. In Belgaum, it should be easy for Suresh Angadi to retain his seat as Congress has put up a new comer in Sadhunavar. In Chikkodi, the BJP resisted the pressure of Katti brothers to give the ticket to Annasaheb Jolle to take on Prakash Hukkeri, who had won by a margin of only 3,000 in 2014.

In Davanagere, the Congress was in utter confusion as it had left it to veteran leader Shamanur Shivashankarappa to either contest himself or put up his son, SS Mallikarjun. Neither of them did in the end and chose a relatively unknown HB Manjappa, possibly easing the way for GM Siddeshwara of the BJP to retain this seat.

Two strong proponents of separate religion for Lingayats, Vinay Kulkarni and Eshwar Khandre are contesting from Dharwad and Bidar against Prahlad Joshi and Bagawant Khooba of the BJP respectively. But neither of them is now raising the issue of separate religion – in fact, senior leader DK Shivakumar has apologised to the community for initiating the move.

In 2014, the BJP had won 11 out of 14 seats, half them by more than one lakh margin. But, just six months ago, when the party suffered two humiliating defeats in the Lok Sabha by-elections at Ballary and Mandya, it looked as though the Congress-JD(S) alliance would prove insurmountable in the 2019 general elections.

But, now the BJP looks more hopeful than ever to reach the 17 seat-mark they achieved in 2014, if not better it. That’s a huge change.