Srinavasa Prasad helps BJP muscle its way into border district

Mysuru: In a nail-biting finish, the BJP has opened its account in the border district of Chamarajanagar (SC reserved) with the victory of V Srinivasa Prasad.
Prasad, who had won from the seat four times on Congress ticket and once on Janata Dal (U) ticket, scripted history by winning the seat for BJP for the first time. The 72-year-old five-time MP returned to Lok Sabha after two decades only to help BJP make its first foray into the Congress bastion.
Prasad defeated Congress candidate R Dhruvanarayana by 1,817 votes in a neck-to-neck fight. He was declared winner around 8pm after he overcame the lead of two-time MP Dhruvanarayana who maintained the lead till the 17th round.
While Prasad secured 5,68,537 votes, Dhruvanarayana got 5,66,720 votes.
One interesting part of the closely fought battle between Congress and BJP was the performance of Bahujan Samaj Party candidate. Its candidate Shivakumar secured 87,208 votes which is almost one-and-a-half-times more than the 34,000 votes it polled last time.
There were 12,706 NOTA votes too.
According to sources, BJP’s last minute selection of senior leader Srinivasa Prasad to contest from Chamarajanagar seat yielded result. When the counting started, both Srinivasa Prasad and Dhruvanarayana were tied in a neck-and-neck fight. However, after the tenth round, Dhruvanarayana, who took up a good lead, including more than 15,000 votes at one stage, was consistently doing well till 17th round. Later, all of a sudden, Srinivasa Prasad bounced back to take the lead. In past two elections, Dhruvanarayana had won the polls by a good margin of votes.
Earlier, after his defeat in the Nanjangud byelection, Srinivasa Prasad had announced that henceforth he would not contest any election and would be inactive in politics. However, due to lack of able candidates to contest from the reserved Chamarajanagar constituency, he was forced to turnaround his decision.
The Modi wave and also the NDA government’s decision to give Scheduled Tribe tag to Parivara and Talawara community, which was their long-pending demand, also proved an advantage for Srinivasa Prasad. It is believed that more than 50% of Parivara and Talawara community people voted for BJP.
The Chamarajanagar constituency came into existence in 1951. Since then, it was almost dominated by Congress.