Perched on an elevated topography of 3,000 ft, the border town of Hosur is a tale of transformation since the State’s first industrial estates found home here in the 1970s to its present bid for the status of a satellite town to Bengaluru – gently balancing the aspirations of an upwardly mobile white collar workforce and a precarious industrial and farm workforce.
It is perhaps the shared border with Karnataka and its infectious aura for the national political parties that Hosur’s electoral history lends an image of a constituency with a general inclination to the national parties. The Congress has won the seat steadily from 1977, except in 1996. But, that spell was broken in 2016, when the AIADMK, became the first Dravidian party to win with the candidacy of P. Balakrishna Reddy. The constituency was duly rewarded with a ministership to Mr. Reddy, which however was vacated upon his conviction (for rioting) and disqualification three years later in 2019.
Though brief, for a section of the town’s urban populace, Mr. Reddy’s ministership gave vent to grievances and demands. For instance, the MSME sector, a strident critique of the BJP on GST, believes the AIADMK has enabled climate for the industry here. “The industry’s access to the government had vastly improved under the AIADMK. The introduction of single window clearances and deemed approvals for land conversion; reduction of subleasing taxes and mortgage of title deeds interest, and raise in the cap of capital expenditure subsidies – have been a shot in the arm for the industry,” says K. Velmurugan, president, Hosur Small and Tiny Industries Association.
The grassroots presence of the BJP’s ideological mentor RSS is strong in neighbouring Thally and some parts of Hosur. Yet, BJP has not won an election here. The BJP candidate ranked fourth, falling behind an independent candidate in the 2011 elections. Nevertheless, Hosur continues to remain in the itinerary of the BJP and its sister organisations, with an expanding cadre base.
Infrastructure is a common trope on the grievance list. For an upwardly mobile town’s citizenry, there is an acute disconnect between the town’s potential and the actual.
The town’s cosmopolitanism is not matched by the infrastructure, says Aadhavan Deetchanya, Hosur resident, and general secretary, Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association. “There is no community space accessible to all sections, and the steady growth of real estate has also eaten into public commons,” says Mr. Deetchanya.
Infrastructure not commensurate with the growth of the town, and its industry; lack of housing facilities for both the dependent labour force and upper echelons of the industry, lack of recreational facilities and cultural space, and chocked water bodies and industrial dump in them are other issues.
Absence of direct train to Chennai and demand for extension of the Bengaluru metro project to Hosur also highlighted.
In this milieu, the AIADMK has fielded S. Jyothi Balakrishna Reddy, spouse of former Animal Husbandry and Sports Minister P. Balakrishna Reddy. Having cut her teeth already in the by-election in 2019, when she lost to DMK’s S.A. Sathya, Ms. Reddy has been given the ticket second time.
Ms. Reddy is saddled with the mixed baggage associated with the name of her husband. Mr. Reddy’s steady rise from municipal chairman to Minister and now fielding his wife upon his conviction, has left discontent among the competing local party aspirants. His image of a local strongman allegedly dabbling with vested interests has found him detractors in equal measure.
DMK has fielded Y. Prakash, the outgoing MLA of Thally, as its candidate in Hosur after ceding that seat to the CPI. Seen as an outsider, and fielded overlooking local DMK heavyweights, Mr. Prakash would have to win over the local DMK solidarities. It is the DMK’s hope that he would act to countervail the Reddy vote bank. However, the AMMK has field M. Mare Gowdu, another Gowda. Makkal Needhi Maiam has fielded S. Masood.
Hosur has a significant Muslim population and Scheduled Caste population – both voter sections unlikely to swing to the AIADMK-BJP alliance. There are villages, where caste composition of SCs, Gowdas and Reddies are equally distributed. But in Hosur, with its easy comingling of a cosmopolitan citizenry, and the traditional rural electorate in the outlying panchayats, caste solidarities can only go so far.
