Battle of prestige for CM Siddaramaiah on his home turf

The cultural capital of Karnataka and the erstwhile seat of power before independence in the state, Mysuru is witnessing a battle royale between BJP’s Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamraja Wadiyar, the scion of the Mysuru royal family, and a nondescript Congress candidate M Lakshman. 

While the actual Congress candidate is just a locally-known voluble face, Wadiyar is taking on in reality CM Siddaramaiah who has made this a prestige battle. For Siddaramaiah this is a do-or-die battle as he hails from the district and needs to defend home turf. Siddaramaiah has personally led the charge against the BJP in the district, conducting numerous meetings and roadshows to wrest the seat from the saffron party. 

The Mysuru seat is spread over both the Mysuru and Kodagu districts. In the May 2023 Assembly elections, of the eight assembly seats which comprise this LS seat, five seats - Madikeri, Virajpet, Periyapatna, Chamraja and Narasimharaja - were won by Congress. Janta Dal (Secular), which has a strong presence in the Old Mysuru region won two - Chamundeshwari and Hunasuru - with BJP managing to win only the Krishnaraja seat. 

With BJP and JDS having tied up for the LS polls, Siddaramaiah, who initially contemplated fielding his son Yathindra from the seat, had second thoughts. The CM is believed to have backtracked after the BJP denied the ticket to its two-term sitting MP Pratap Simha and decided to field the royal scion Wadiyar. 

The erstwhile royals still command huge respect amongst people of the district and across the state for their ‘énlightened rule’ with even Mahatma Gandhi calling Yaduveer’s ancestor as ‘Raj Rishi’. Also, the Wadiyar’s are no strangers to politics. Yaduveer’s predecessor on the Mysuru throne, Srikantadatta Narasimha Raja Wadiyar contested LS polls five times and won four of them. He won three polls on the Congress ticket and once on BJP’s lotus symbol.

BJP’s challenges

However, everything is not hunky-dory in BJP too. There is considerable heartburn amongst supporters of Simha for him being denied a ticket. While leaders of the alliance might be working in tandem, on ground coordination between BJP and JDS leaders is missing. 

Siddaramaiah has also reached out to erstwhile rivals, some sidelined in the saffron party, and wooed them to help him in the battle. Congress has also blatantly played the caste card highlighting that its candidate is a Vokkaliga, the numerically dominant caste in the constituency, against the Urs community to which Yaduveer belongs to. 

Congress also has tried to posit this as a fight between an inaccessible royal against a friendly neighbourhood commoner who will be accessible to the constituents. To counter this BJP turned to its key campaigners, PM Narendra Modi, and former CM, BS Yediyurappa, who held a massive rally in the seat. JDS chief and BJP ally Deve Gowda and his son HD Kumaraswamy also have thrown their weight behind Wadiyar to woo the Vokkaliga vote. 

Political analyst Harish Ramaswamy says that Lakshman, with the backing of CM Siddaramaiah, and full might of the Congress party could have given a tough fight to anybody but Wadiyar. “Yaduveer has an advantage because of both his lineage and his party. His own gentle image and ability to mingle with common people as well as his work and concerns regarding protecting the heritage and environment of Mysuru is likely to give him an edge. Attempts to polarise the elections on the basis of caste is unlikely to succeed.”

(With inputs from BL Intern Meghna Barik)

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