Karnataka polls : Relevance of Vokkaliga votes, Old Mysuru region and Tipu Sultan

 Karnataka polls : Relevance of Vokkaliga votes, Old Mysuru region and Tipu Sultan

Bengaluru/New Delhi

Stage is set for voting for elections to the Karnataka assembly. This coming poll
on Wednesday, May 10, is part of a series of electoral frays slated this year.

All eyes will be on voting in the Old Mysuru region as there are 60 seats hereand Muslims constitute about 12 per cent of the total electorate. Importantly, on average Muslim turnout in elections is estimated to be more than 75 percent. Moreover, Vokkaligas have about 42 percent voters in the region. 

Just a few months back people exercised their franchise in three north eastern states.Immediately after Karnataka, focus will shift to five states of MP, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh,Telangana and Mizoram.

Thus the battle of Karnataka has an importance of its own. And talking about the Karnatakabattle, there is an enhanced significance of the battle in the Old Mysuru region.

Stretching from Bengaluru (Rural) to Chamarajanagar districts, there are as many as 60 seats. The Vokkaligasare crucial as they make up about 42 percent of the population.

This forms the powerful base of Vokkaligas -- the caste group of former PM H D Deve Gowda and henceof the JD(S). There are substantial Muslim voters and Congress also managed to get a sizable share of votesand this time the BJP is making a serious effort to make a deep penetration.

All these are normal observations and inputs. But a critical factor is the politics around Tipu Sultan.

It was Congress chief minister Siddaramaiah, who had introduced the celebrations of ‘Tipu Jayanti’ triggeringhyped political row. 

But in this year's polls as the saffron party wants to improve its performance in the region to retainpower comfortably in Bengaluru; paradoxically the Congress party played so-called 'soft Hindutva'and virtually forgot Tipu Sultan. 

“Mallikarju Kharge is from our state, he could have easily come here to pay tribute to Tipu Sultanat his memorial. But the all India Congress president wants to play soft-Hindutva and keep Hindu voters happyand hence Tipu Sultan was forgotten,” says a local resident Naseer Zia. 

Even the family members of Tipu Sultan voiced their 'displeasures' with Congress as Karnatakastate Congress president visited the Chamundeshwari temple -- not very far from Tipu Sultan's statue.Nevertheless, politics is all about votes and the Old Mysuru region was no exception.

For their part, BJP poll strategists feel the JD(S) popularity and Deve Gowda's grip on the Vokkaliga communityis on wane. Deve Gowda himself lost from Tumkur parliamentary constituency in 2019.His grandson Nikhil Gowda also lost from Mandya and several other JD-S candidates also were humbled.The only consolation came in Deve Gowda’s other grandson, Prajwal Revanna winning the Hassan seat.

The BJP is more than keen to fill in the gap presumably vacated by the Gowda family owing tomultiple factors including non performance of Gowda's son Kumaraswamy as Chief Minister and the age factor of the former Prime Minister himself.

The BJP declared 42 Vokkaliga candidates in this year's polls. The Congress understandably believesthe Muslim votes will come to it as a natural flow.

Interestingly, Rahul Gandhi's trusted man D K Shivakumar, the state Congress chief, alsobelongs to the Vokkaliga community.

Thus, analysts feel the battle is wide open in this region. The crucial assembly seat of Krishnarajapete (also called KR Pete) has shown the changing political dynamics.

In 2018, K.C. Narayanagowda of the JD(S) won the seat with a good margin, but he defected to the BJP – one of the 17 MLAs and subsequently H D Kumaraswamy-led JD(S)-Congress coalition government was toppled. In fact, if Narayanagowda surprised observers by his defection, people were essentially shell-shocked as he won the seat again as a BJP candidate in the 2019 bypolls,

The BJP has fielded him again for the K.R. Pete seat for May 10 polls. The saffron party strategists

feel Prime Minister Narendra Modi's magical spell will change the entire dynamics in this region.

In 2021 assembly bypolls, the JD-S candidate had lost the Maski assembly seat as well. 

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