Tumakuru all set to witness a clash of titans

Tumakuru: Tumakuru is set to witness a tough fight between two veterans- – JD(S) nominee and former PM H.D. Deve Gowda and the BJP G.S. Basavaraju, who have contested seven LS polls from different constituencies.

However, Mr Deve Gowda and Mr Basavaraju are coming face to face in a poll for the first time in Tumakuru. Having shifted from his native place Hassan to make way for his grandson Prajwal Revanna, Deve Gowda is now contesting from Tumakuru which has been allotted to his party under the Congress-JD(S) seat sharing arrangement. Gowda had contested from Hassan in 1991, 1998, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014 and was once defeated in 1999 by Congress nominee G. Puttaswamy Gowda.

After losing the 1999 poll in Hassan, Deve Gowda tasted success contesting from faraway Kanakapura in  the 2002 bypoll when he trounced Congress nominee D.K. Shivakumar, now a minister in the Kumaraswamy cabinet. Deve Gowda contested from Hassan and Kanakapura in the 2004 election and lost in Kanakapura to Congress’ Tejaswini Ramesh. Former Congress MLA Narayan told DC that the Tumakuru result will depend on anti-incumbency against the NDA government and claimed that there is a strong current  against the Modi government in Tumakuru which will help Gowda win. If caste calculations are taken into consideration, there is not much of a difference in the population of Vokkaligas and Veerashaiva-Lingayats, two major communities in the constituency. Deve Gowda is from the Vokkaliga community and Basavaraju from the Veerashaiva-Lingayat community.

Basavaraju, a four time MP who had won in 1984, 1989 and 1999 as a Congress nominee in Tumakuru, later shifted his loyalty to the BJP and won the 2009 election. He lost in 2014 to Congress nominee Muddahanume Gowda who is now in the fray as a rebel Congress nominee.

DCC  chief Ramakrishna is sure that his party workers will back Mr Deve Gowda abiding by the directions of the party high command to work for the success of the former PM.

But, BJP MLA Jyothiganesh accuses Deve Gowda of denying Tumakuru residents their share of Hemavathy water.