The tussle for a Bangalore Lok Sabha seat is taking centrestage with Congress candidate Tejaswini Gowda, who had trounced former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda in the 2004 polls, taking on his son and JD(S) chief H D Kumaraswamy.
Besides Kumaraswamy, journalist-turned-politician Tejaswini is pitted against her one-time close friend C P Yogeshwara, an MLA, who recently quit the Congress and is contesting on a BJP ticket, in the keenly watched contest for the Bangalore Rural Lok Sabha constituency on April 23.
Tejaswini had a dream debut in politics in 2004 when she cantered home against Deve Gowda from Kanakapura constituency which has become extinct after delimitation, in a battle of David and Goliath. Gowda finished an embarrassing third then.
Winning with a margin of over 100,000 votes against her nearest rival Ramachandra Gowda (BJP), she hogged the headlines for ringing true an astrological prediction that it was only a woman who could defeat the JD(S) supremo. She was given the Congress ticket despite strong opposition from several leaders, including her once mentor and KPCC working President D K Shivakumar, who had scripted her success in the last polls. The party high command has chosen Tejaswini overlooking Shivakumar’s bid to get the seat for one of his relatives.
The bitter feud in the run-up to securing the party nomination is expected to impact Tejaswani’s electioneering with Shivakumar likely to keep away from campaigning for her though she did not think so. “The pressure is on Shivakumar (a Vokkaliga strongman in the party) as the constituency is a Vokkaliga belt. It is going to be a challenge for him to prove his mettle in the Vokkaliga land,” Tejaswani, one of the two women candidates fielded by Congress in Karnataka, said.
“Kumaraswamy does not intimidate me and I am a more mature politician now. I am confident I will win this time too, only because of my work and nothing else,” she says. “My fight is not only against the former chief minister but also against BJP candidate Yogeshwar. We have to work a bit hard as Yogeshwar left the party,” said the once-successful anchor of a regional talk show.
More From This Section
Another feature that would make the triangular fight even more competitive is that all the three candidates are Vokkaligas, a dominant caste in Bangalore Rural. The area of the constituency is spread over three districts — Bangalore Urban, Ramanagara and Tumkur. The constituency comprises newly-carved Assembly constituencies Rajarajeshwarinagar and Bangalore South. Post-delimitation, the Kanakapura constituency from which Tejaswani defeated Gowda, has been renamed Bangalore Rural.
For Yogeshwar, winning might be a challenge due to financial controversies dogging him. Yogeshwar had won from Channapatna Assembly constituency three times, once as an independent (1999) and twice on a Congress ticket in 2004 and 2008. He quit the Congress recently claiming he was disgusted with “inner party politics”. However, his detractors alleged that Yogeshwar joined BJP as he anticipated withdrawal of certain cases filed against him.
Yogeshwar has been in the news for wrong reasons. He promoted the Mega City Developers and Builders in 1995 and launched Vajragiri township project with an intention to offer sites to the public. He was accused of cheating by not allotting sites to those who invested money. However, according to Yogeshwar, “no case regarding the Mega City project is pending against me, I do not know why the opposition leaders raise this issue time and again. For the last 10 years they have been raising the issue”.
“Yes, there were some problems regarding conversion of certain parts of the land notified for the project. Considering the unavoidable circumstances, I returned the money to those who had invested and paid the interest too,” he said. Kumaraswamy is contesting Parliamentary elections for the third time. He made debut from Kanakapura in 1996 and won but lost in 1998.
The former chief minister is banking on the internal war brewing in the Congress and Yogeshwar’s image being marred by financial controversies. “The people know very well the background of the BJP candidates selected from constituencies like Bangalore Rural. The candidate has duped thousands of persons in the name of Mega City project. Home Minister Dr V S Acharya has ordered a Corps Of Detectives inquiry into it. The party (BJP) has become a subject of public ridicule because of selection of such candidates,” Kumaraswamy claimed.
He is also banking on the JD(S) being the driving point of the recently launched Third Front. “The time has come for regional parties to make their presence felt at the national level to fulfil promises made to the people.”
The three candidates are leaving no stone unturned to woo voters. While Kumaraswamy has gone hi-tech in his campaigning, both Tejaswani and Yogeshwar are also engaged in an aggressive campaign. The Assembly constituencies that fall under Bangalore Rural are Rajarajeshwarinagar, Bangalore South, Anekal, Magadi, Ramnagara, Kanakapura, Chanapatna (represented by Yogeshwar) and Kunigal. The constituency has 1,867,711 voters comprising 973,006 men and 894,705 women.