In the second phase of Karnataka elections on April 23 Shivamogga lok sabha constituency is in the news as two sons of former Chief Ministers are fighting their crucial battle.
BY Raghavendra — son of BJP’s lingayat strong man BS Yeddyurappa — and Madhu Bangarappa — son of former Chief Minister S Bangarappa from the JDS — are in the fray.
Madhu Bangarappa who was defeated in the bypoll held few months back by a small margin is the united candidate of the Congress and the JDS in this constituency. It was in 2014 BS Yeddyurappa won against Manjunath Bhandari of the Congress by a very big margin of over 3,50,000 votes. In 2018 Assembly polls BJP won seven of the eight segments.
Shivamogga Lok Sabha constituency, one of the high-profile constituencies in the State, is likely to witness a high-voltage electoral battle BY Raghavendra and Madhu Bangarappa — in a gap of just six months. It is also the fight between AHINDA( Minorities and Backward classes) of Siddaramaiah and the dominant community of Lingayat of Yeddyurappa.
This Malnad constituency has been the stronghold of BJP and also the home town of Yeddyurappa since 2004. JDS candidate Madhu Bangarappa had lost to Raghavendra in the November 2018 by-election by a margin of 52,148 votes in a constituency comprising over 14.3 lakh electorates.
It’s a neck-to-neck fight and the JDs-Congress combines leaving no stone untouched to trounce the BJP. But Yeddyurappa and BJP is also betting big on to take on Madhu Bangarappa. RSS and BJP are working hard to keep the seat to defeat Madhu Bangarappa. The caste and polarisation is the key factor in deciding the fate of these heavy weights.
With the help of the politically dominant Lingayat community, to which Yeddyurappa and Raghavendra belong, the BJP hopes to outsmart Madhu, who belongs to the backward Idiga ( toddy tapper ) community. Experts say the coming together of the Congress and the JDS will lead to the consolidation of secular, backward and minority votes against the BJP. It’s not about any ideology but in a way direct fight between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi.
