Mysuru/Mandya: A group of Vokkaliga community members at the Aghaleya village in Mandya district made their political preferences quite evident. “We will vote for the Congress,” said one in the group, annoyed with the allegedly absentee MLA of the constituency. “We made multiple requests to the MLA to repair the village road that had caved in after a landslide last year. All our petitions have gone unheard,” he said.
Another in the group said, “A canal of the river Kaveri passes through our village but we don’t get that water. The MLA had promised to divert that water towards our village but nothing happened.”
Other respondents also nodded in agreement, as they echoed support for the Congress. Most said that barely anyone had any disposable income to spend on their other needs. “Whatever we get, we spend it all. There has been no growth in our earnings,” said a village elder.
In the adjoining village called Sarangi, however, the popular mood turns in favour of the Janata Dal (Secular) [JD(S)]. “We made a mistake last time by choosing someone who had betrayed our party. The current BJP government has betrayed farmers and has only empowered the rich people. Poor have become even poorer,” said a Sarangi resident.
An elderly woman intervened in his support. “The prices of all things have gone up. The LPG cylinders are now Rs 1,200. We do not even get proper electricity these days. We used to get 10 kg of (PDS) rice earlier but this government has reduced it to merely five kg. How can one family survive with so little?” she asked.
In both the villages, with different electoral choices, alleged corruption scandals during the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP government were perceived as the reason for such volatility in people’s lives.
“Politicians are only interested in making their pockets heavier. Whose money is it that they are taking? It is our money, the money that should have been spent on us,” said the village elder in Aghaleya.
Aghaleya is a part of the Krishnarajapete assembly constituency in the Mandya district. Colloquially known as K.R. Pete, the seat has switched between the JD(S) and the Congress but threw in a surprise by electing the BJP in 2019. In 2018, K.C. Narayanagowda of the JD(S) won the seat with a good margin, but soon defected to the BJP – one of 17 legislators who did so, toppling the H.D. Kumaraswamy-led coalition government. Narayanagowda surprised many observers when he won by a larger margin as a BJP candidate in the 2019 bypolls, defeating the nearest JD(S) candidate. He is contesting the K.R. Pete seat as a BJP candidate again in the May 10 assembly polls.
People in Aghaleya village in KR Pete seat. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad
The Vokkaligas comprise almost 50% of the electorate in the constituency, a majority of whom are farmers. Apart from K.R. Pete and a few other seats in the adjoining Mysore district, the Mandya MP Sumalatha, who won as an independent, also joined the BJP. With this, it appeared that the BJP has made considerable inroads in the region. The aggressive campaign in the Vokkaliga heartland in southern Karnataka over the last two years gave an impression that the saffron party is indeed a fledgling force in the Old Mysore region. The BJP machinery organised a series of outreach programmes in the Vokkaliga belt, showing its seriousness to gain an electoral footprint in the region.
The territories under the former Mysore princely state in south Karnataka are now called the Old Mysore region, comprising 61 seats stretching from Bengaluru (Rural) to Chamarajanagar districts. Traditionally, the JD(S) had relied on its Vokkaliga support and social coalitions with Muslims to secure a number of seats in the region. The Congress has banked on its AHINDA (OBCs, Dalits, and Muslims) base, along with a section of Vokkaligas to compete with the JD(S). The Vokkaliga community’s strength can be derived from the fact that its population is estimated to be over 40% in the region. With a solid concentration of Vokkaligas in the Old Mysore region, the JD(S)’s success in the region is considered the primary factor behind the Congress and the BJP’s inability to come to power on its own.
Strategies of national parties
Both the Congress and BJP, therefore, have planned many strategies to gain a larger footprint in the region.
Over the past year, the BJP, a dominant force in northern Karnataka, has raked up Hindutva issues in the region. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited the region multiple times, announced development projects for the region, and constantly invoked the valour of the 16th-century Vokkaliga chieftain Kempegowda. He even installed a giant statue of him outside the Bengaluru airport. BJP leaders attempted to give a communal colour to many of the issues.
For example, late last year, the Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha threatened to demolish a Mysuru city bus stand which had domes. Simha said that the bus stand resembled a masjid. Similarly, Hindutva fringe organisations kept raising communal heat by encroaching upon hillocks and public spaces to install saffron flags or idols of Hindu deities. In Kanakapura, the constituency of Congresss state president D.K. Shivakumar, a similar fringe organisation stirred up a furore over a proposed statue of Jesus Christ in a Christian-majority village.
At the same time, the BJP leaders fuelled a false narrative that Vokkaliga chieftains Uri Gowda and Nanje Gowda killed the 18th-century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan, who has been consistently villainised in the Hindutva folklore. The false narrative was central to the BJP’s outreach in the region until April 2023, when the pontiff Nirmalanandanatha of the biggest Vokkaliga shrine Adichunchangiri Mutt intervened to dismiss the BJP’s claims about Tipu Sultan’s killing. He said that there is “a difference between history and writing fiction” and that everyone knew that Tippu was killed by the British forces in Srirangapatna in 1799. The BJP quietly buried the “Uri Gowda-Nanje Gowda” campaign immediately to prevent any political backlash from the influential mutt.
Puja festivities at Sri Ranganathaswami Temple at Srirangapatna, Mandya. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad
In the run-up to the May 10 polls, however, the BJP appeared to have fizzled out in Mandya, as the region is headed for yet another clash between the traditional rivals, the JD(S) and Congress. As BJP focussed on the Hindutva narrative with little appeal in the region, given a history of communal harmony in the region, the JD(S) and the Congress ran an intensive campaign on agrarian issues and concerns that were more immediate like price rise, irrigation, social securities, and corruption scandals under the Bommai-led BJP government.
The BJP made its first inroads after winning a few seats in the 2018 assembly polls, but traditionally, the JD(S) and the Congress fought it out in Old Mysore for dominance.
The JD(S)’s relevance in the state is solely because of Old Mysore. Its vote share has never come down below 18-20% in the last few elections, most of which comes from the eight districts – Mandya, Bengaluru (Rural), Mysuru, Haasan, Kolar, Ramnagara, Tumkur, Chikkaballapura. The Vokkaliga community credits JD(S) supremo and former chief minister H.D. Devegowda for the evident agricultural prosperity of the region.
In the last year, JD(S) leader Kumaraswamy has focussed on strengthening the party’s stronghold and led two campaigns, one on irrigation issues of farmers and, more recently, the Panchatantra Rathyatra promising five welfare programmes – free education, free healthcare, initiatives for farmers, employment for a member of each family, and housing for all – if it comes to power.
Kumaraswamy and his son Nikhil are contesting in Channapatna and Ramanagara (city) seats in the Old Mysore region. A JD(S) worker in Ramanagara, Lokesh, said, “With the family (Deve Gowda’s kin) contesting in Ramanagara, we are confident of winning all the seats of the district. We will do well in Mandya too as people have really appreciated our Panchatantra promises. Our focus is on farmers’ issues. We will surely be in a position to become kings, not merely kingmakers.”
JD(S)’s Nikhil Kumaraswamy election office in Ramanagara. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad
Despite being written off by observers in every election, the JD(S) has managed to secure around 30 seats and even more, in a way preventing either of the two national parties from securing a majority. In 2018, the party got 37 seats in the polls that delivered a hung verdict. Across all the districts of Old Mysore, the JD(S) has been running an aggressive campaign and has also been the most vocal against Hindutva, as minority votes have been crucial to the party’s electoral arithmetic.
Congress, on the other hand, has stuck firmly to its social security “guarantees” and has highlighted the multiple corruption scandals during the incumbent Bommai government. A Congress worker engaged in the party’s research department, who didn’t want to be named, said, “The Old Mysore region is really important for us. That is why our candidates are talking mostly about farmers’ welfare and caste census in the region. We hope to get a significant chunk of Vokkaliga votes apart from consolidating our AHINDA (OBCs, Dalits, and Minorities) base. Our slogan ‘40% sarkara’, highlighting the illegal commissions taken by the government, has had a special impact in Old Mysore.”
The two top leaders of the Congress – Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar – also belong to the Old Mysore region. The grand old party is relying to gain from Siddaramaiah’s image as he is a popular figure among non-Vokkaliga communities, and Shivakumar, who belongs to the Vokkaliga community, to edge out the JD(S) in this tight electoral contest. The duo has been asking for a decisive mandate to counter the JD(S)’s offensive against the two national parties and equating both the BJP and the Congress for allegedly being insensitive to the real concerns of farmers.
Region could provde crucial in deciding outcome
The Congress will have to outperform the JD(S) in Old Mysore to build over and above its victories in its strongholds like Kalyana Karnataka and parts of central Karnataka, if it aims to cross the majority mark in the 224-member assembly. Similarly, the JD(S) would like to consolidate its position in the region to play the role of a “kingmaker” in case of a hung verdict again.
Amidst such a tight contest, the BJP has hit the electoral ground with much energy in the last few days, despite losing its initial steam. At Srirangapatna near Mysuru, a taxi driver said that a large section of people have decided to vote for the BJP. “We have given chances to the JD(S) and the Congress multiple times, but we want to try out a new party this time,” he said, even while claiming that Hindutva has no appeal in the region.
A BJP worker in Kadur constituency in Chikmagalur told The Wire that it has now begun to concentrate its energy on 20-odd seats of the region, mostly urban constituencies, even as it hopes that the JD(S) eventually outperforms the Congress. “We are fighting very strongly in the urban constituencies and will surely improve our performance. In case, the minority votes split between the JD(S) and the Congress, our seat tally can go up to even 25 in the Old Mysore region,” the district-level worker said.
BJP office in Kadur seat of Chikmagalur. Photo: Ajoy Ashirwad
He said that the party workers are mostly canvassing on development works, like installation of street lights, road widening, new drinking water facilities, done in the towns of south Karnataka, while the national leadership is invoking larger Hindutva issues, like scrapping of Muslim quota.
The BJP is surely a fledgling party in the region, even if it may not have the organisational muscle to match the JD(S) and the Congress currently. But it has been able to project itself as a futuristic, development-oriented party that has attracted the attention of a large section of youth. Many young voters, especially the educated youth, can be seen cheering for the party – a factor that may prove to be crucial for the saffron party in the long run. At the moment, however, Old Mysore has geared itself up for yet another pitched battle between the two traditional rivals.