BENGALURU: The Congress party made a comeback in Hassan Lok Sabha winning the 2024 election through its candidate Shreyas Patel, a grandson of former Lok Sabha member G. Puttaswamy Gowda.
Shreyas defeated his nearest rival incumbent Lok Sabha member Prajwal Revanna, a consensus nominee of Janata Dal Secular and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) who is in the custody of Special Investigation Team (SIT) under Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigating rape and sexual exploitation charges.
Prajwal got 6, 26, 536 votes and Shreyas secured 6, 70, 274 and the difference was 43, 738 votes. The Congress party last won the Hassan Lok Sabha in 1999 when G. Puttaswamy Gowda trounced former Prime Minister H.D. Devegowda of Janata Dal Secular (JDS).
In 2004, 2009 and 2014 elections, H. D. Devegowda retained the Hassan parliamentary seat as a JDS nominee. In 2019, he made way for his grandson Prajwal Revanna to contest from Hassan seat and Devegowda moved to Tumakuru Lok Sabha seat where he lost to BJP nominee Basavaraju.
Shreyas Patel, a former Zilla Panchayat member in Hassan, had unsuccessfully contested the Holenarsipura assembly seat in the 2023 election against JDS nominee and former minister H.D. Revanna, father of Prajwal Revanna. Shreyas lost to Revanna by a slender margin of about 2,500 votes.
In Hassan, the families of Devegowda and Puttaswamy Gowda faced elections since 1985 in the Holenarsipura assembly seat. Political bete noire of Devegowda, tasted success against Devegowda in 1898 Holenarsipura assembly elections and his other success against Devegowda was in 1999 Hassan Lok Sabha elections.
In Hassan, sources alleged that BJP workers might not have worked wholeheartedly for the success of JDS-BJP consensus nominee which helped the Congress nominee. Congress workers celebrated the success of Shreyas Patel by bursting crackers at Mahatma Gandhi circle in Holenarispur town.
