Siddaramaiah eyes his third victory from Varuna seat

BENGALURU: Having won eight Assembly elections since his electoral debut in 1983, the Congress leader and former chief minister Siddaramaiah filed his nominations for the Varuna Assembly seat in Mysuru, for what said was his last contest in electoral politics.

Varuna is a new assembly seat which came into existence after the delimitation of Assembly seats in 2008 and Siddaramaiah won Varuna seat in 2008 and 2013 elections. A win in the Varuna seat will make his hat-truck victory in the seat.

In the ensuing poll, Siddaramaiah is contesting against Bharatiya Janata Party nominee and Minister for Housing V. Somanna and former legislator Dr Bharathi Shankar of Janata Dal Secular (JDS). Somanna is an MLA representing Govindaraja Nagar in Bengaluru and for him, Varuna is a new turf while JDS nominee had once represented T. Narsipura Assembly seat in Mysuru as a BJP nominee in 1999.

Prior to Varuna seat, Siddaramaiah won from Chamundeshwari Assembly seat in Mysuru winning in 1983 as an independent, in 1985 as an Janata Party nominee, in 1994 he won as Janata Dal nominee, in 2004 he won as a Janata Dal Secular candidate and in 2006 bypoll, he won as a Congress nominee.

In 2018, Siddaramaiah contested from Chamundeshwari seat and also from Badami seat in north Karnataka. Siddarmaiah lost the Chamundeshwari seat and won Badami seat. Citing age factor, he decided to leave out Badami seat since it would be difficult for him to travel to the constituency which is about 350-kms from Bengaluru.

In the 2023 election, Siddaramaiah wished to contest from Kolar Assembly seat and also from Varuna seat and the party high command turned down his request to contest from the former.

Prior to his filing of papers, Siddaramaiah addressed a gathering where he stated that he belonged to Varuna Hobli and his native village Siddaramana Hundi falls in the same. He thanked voters of Varuna for making him win the seat by a margin of about 30,000 votes in 2008 and 2013 elections.  

He accused his rival in the fray and Minister for Housing V. Somanna of not initiating steps to distribute a single house for the poor in Varuna seat.

Siddaramaiah was confident that his party would come back to power in the State and BJP leaders such as Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi joining Congress party quitting BJP is an indication of Congress party coming back to power in Karnataka.

Before he filed his nominations, Siddaramaiah visited his native village Siddaramana Hundi and prayed at Chamundeshwari Temple atop Chamundi Hills in Mysuru.

Siddaramaiah’s younger brother Siddegowda exuded confidence of his brother’s victory in the ensuing polls and attributed that his brother’s victory to development works carried out in Varuna.