Furious campaign for assembly bypolls in 3 seats ends

Belgaum| Bengaluru: Campaigning for the August 21 Assembly by-polls for three constituencies in which the ruling Congress has invested much prestige after its unimpressive Lok Sabha election performance, ended on Tuesday evening.

The Siddaramaiah government has spared no effort mobilising men and resource to retain the Chikkodi-Sadalga seat while eyeing to wrest Shikaripur and Bellary Rural from BJP. BJP strongman and former Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's son B.Y. Raghavendra is seeking election from their stronghold of Shikaripura, which his father vacated consequent to his election to Lok Sabha.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his ministerial colleagues campaigned intensely to prove a political point as the ruling Congress had put up an average show in the Lok Sabha polls held three months ago, winning only nine of the 28 seats in the state, allowing BJP to walk away with a lion's share of 17. The JDS had bagged two seats.

Interestingly, the JD(S) headed by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda has not fielded candidates in all the three constituencies going to the bypolls. A section of its leaders are backing the Congress in Shikaripur. The last day of campaigning saw leaders of both the Congress and BJP in the Chikkodi-Sadalga constituency pulling out all stops to woo voters to their side.

But both candidates, Ganesh Hukkeri of the Congress and Mahantesh Kavatagimath of the BJP, claimed they were not aware of the huge quantities of liquor and other material flooding the constituency ahead of the polls. The Congress which has five wins from the constituency, seemed overconfident, with water resources minister, M B Patil, asserting that Mr Ganesh Hukkeri should win by a record margin of votes as his father, Prakash Hukkeri had developed Chikkodi into a model constituency.  Mr Ganesh himself sang the same tune.

Aware of the challenge, the BJP roped in most of  its top leaders from the  Lingayat and Kuruba communities that are predominant in the constituency  to  campaign for its candidate over the last few weeks. Leaders from backward classes like K S Eshwarappa and Balachandra Jarkihol too stayed in the constituency till the last day. Mr Balachandra, who had stayed away from the BJP campaign for almost five years, was persuaded to pitch in this time  to help the party win over the backward classes, but whether this will do the trick remains to be seen.

Interestingly, both  candidates  of the BJP and Congress are  contesting their first election to the state assembly. While Mr Kavatagimath has been active  in the field of cooperatives for the last 30 years, Mr Ganesh has worked in the cooperative sector for the last  decade and been a zilla panchayat member for nine years.