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The three ‘D’s—disgruntlement, disappointment, and disillusionment—are the common thread that ties Karnataka’s revolving politicians together. In the season of elections, defections may be a common practice, but this time the southern state is witnessing a high-voltage game of musical chairs between leaders from the Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, and Janata Dal (Secular).
Ticket aspirants and upset leaders have been crisscrossing across party lines to secure their political futures and find a place in the 224-member-strong Karnataka legislative assembly. For some, it has been a “gharwapasi” after they were denied tickets by the parties they are leaving behind. For others, like Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi, it has been projected as “ill-treatment of senior leaders”.
The BJP seems to have been hit hard after nearly a dozen leaders including bigwigs like former chief minister Shettar and former deputy CM Savadi quit the party to join the Congress. They left after their names did not make it to the ticket list despite being influential and multi-term legislators. This has translated into a narrative of how senior Lingayat leaders were being used like “handkerchiefs” and will be thrown away once the elections are over, just like they did with BS Yediyurappa.
This month, Mudigere legislator MP Kumaraswamy quit the BJP after he was denied a ticket to contest the assembly polls. Before joining the JD(S), the three-time MLA blamed national general secretary CT Ravi for not getting nominated.
The Bharatiya Janata Party also lost two other influential leaders, Baburao Chinchansur and NY Gopalkrishna. BJP legislative council member Chinchansur, who played a key role in the defeat of Congress national president Mallikarjun Kharge from Gulbarga Lok Sabha constituency in 2019, joined the grand old party after he was upset that he was not given a cabinet berth.
NY Gopalkrishna resigned just days after incumbent chief minister Basavaraj Bommai accused the Congress of poaching BJP MLAs by offering them tickets to contest the elections. Kudligi MLA Gopalkrishna has been a six-time legislator and has been given a ticket to contest from the Molakalmuru assembly segment in Chitradurga, a seat that he has won four times on a Congress ticket. In 2018, after being denied a nomination by the Congress, the BJP gave him a ticket to contest from Kudligi in the Vijayanagara district which he won.
Another BJP legislator, Puttanna, also resigned from the legislative council and joined the Congress.
In February, just months before the elections were announced in Karnataka, a senior Lingayat leader from Chikkamagaluru, HD Thammaiah, a close aide of BJP heavyweight and national general secretary CT Ravi, quit the saffron party to join the Congress. Thammaiah, who had worked with the BJP for about 17 years, was apparently utterly disappointed with the way the party was handling the candidate selection process.
Elected as an independent legislator from Ranebennur in 2018 but later denied a ticket by the BJP from the seat in the 2019 assembly bypolls, R Shankar also quit the saffron party after being refused a nomination once more. A former minister in the Yediyurappa cabinet, he was later elected as a BJP MLC.
“I supported the BJP when they needed it the most. I was one of the reasons they came back to power…Despite six vacancies in the cabinet, they did not consider us fit,” Shankar told the media while announcing he would contest as an independent candidate.
The Congress also has had its fair share of defections, though it faced a major jolt in 2019 when 13 of its MLAs resigned to join the BJP, toppling the Congress-JD(S) alliance government.
Those who rebelled from the Congress and joined the BJP and have been given tickets from the saffron party this time as well are Ramesh Jarkiholi (Gokak), Mahesh Kumatahalli (Athani), Srimanth B Patil (Kagwad), Pratap Gouda Patil (Maski), Shivaram Hebbar (Yellapur), BC Patil (Hirekerur), R Shankar (independent), K Sudhakar (Chikkaballapur), BA Basavaraj (KR Pura), ST Somashekar (Yeshwanthpura), K Munirathna (Rajarajeswari Nagar), and MTB Nagaraj (Hoskote).
The rebels from the JD(S) were AH Vishwanath, KC Narayana Gowda, and K Gopalaiah. Narayana Gowda and Gopalaiah have even been given tickets by the BJP for the Krishnarajpet and Mahalakshmi Layout assembly seats respectively.
In April this year, Congress leader and former MLC Nagaraj Chabbi joined the BJP in Delhi after he was denied a ticket to contest the upcoming polls from Kalaghatagi. The BJP has picked him to contest from the seat.
The Congress saw open revolt from leaders across Chitradurga, Gangavati, Kadur, Dharwad, Gokak, Athani, Molkalmuru, Tumakuru, Madikeri, Kalghatagi, Channagiri, among others, as they claimed that “imported” leaders were being given preference over dedicated Congressmen.
The Congress also lost R Akhanda Srinivas Murthy who was the MLA from Pulakeshinagar in Bengaluru city. Murthy did not make it on the first three lists of candidates issued, and anticipating his name being dropped, he quit the party.
If the BJP and the Congress’s houses are not in order, so is the situation in the HD Deve Gowda-led JD(S) as well. Gowda loyalist and senior JD(S) leader YSV Datta quit the party after internal differences with the Deve Gowda family and the feeling of being sidelined by HD Kumaraswamy. He joined the Congress in the hope of getting a ticket for the Kadur seat. But the Congress had other plans and it announced KS Anand as the candidate. Thoroughly upset about being denied the ticket, Datta did a U-turn and returned to the JD(S) where he was given a ticket to contest from Kadur.
Trouble began to mount for the JD(S) as well after three of its legislators—AT Ramaswamy who represents Arkalgud (Hassan district), SR Srinivas representing Gubbi (Tumakuru district), and Shivalinge Gowda representing Arsikere (Tumakuru district)—also broke away. Ramaswamy joined the BJP while Srinivas went to the Congress.
A Manju, a former minister who has jumped ship from both the Congress and BJP, recently joined the JD(S) and the party gave him a ticket to contest from Arkalgud.
Another senior leader, AH Vishwanath, who is also a former JD(S) legislator and was one of the MLAs who led the rebellion to topple the Congress-JD(S) alliance and herded the rebels to a hotel in Mumbai, has returned to the Congress. Vishwanath left the Congress in 2017 and joined the JD(S) and later joined hands with the BJP as part of ‘Operation Lotus’ to topple the HD Kumaraswamy government. He contested on a BJP ticket from the Hunsur seat but lost. He was later made a member of the legislative council.
The merry-go-round of leaders to fulfil their aspirations to fight elections has certainly left the parties scrambling. But many leaders told News18 that as the last date of nomination nears, the parties are also on alert to ensure minimum defections and maximum success.
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