BENGALURU: With CM
Siddaramaiah opting to contest from
Badami as his second seat, the focus has shifted to North Karnataka which is expected to play a crucial role in determining which party rules the state.
Siddaramaiah appears to have taken his battle against BJP straight into the
Lingayat heartland after he had set the cat among the pigeons by backing the community's demand for a religious minority status.
The Lingayat community is spread over 96 constituencies across 12 districts in the region. An analysis of the election results since 1985 shows how North Karnataka districts played a key role in the formation of the government and how parties rejected by the people of the region failed to make it.
It was North Karnataka which helped the
Janata Party led by late
Ramakrishna Hegde return to power with a comfortable majority. In 2008, it was this region's overwhelming support to BS Yeddyurappa which helped BJP taste power for the first time in the state. In the 2013 assembly elections, the region stood by
Congress and helped it return to power after 10 years. Congress is said to have bagged 15% of the total Lingayat votes in the region.
Observers feel a lot depends on how Congress markets the Badami fight. "The leadership has to sell the idea that Siddaramaiah's Badami contest is not on account of fear of him losing Chamundeshwari but to get a CM candidate to contest from the region. It should draw an analogy with Modi who chose Varanasi not because he was unsure of Vadodara but to win from the northern heartland,'' said political analyst Sandeep Shastri.
