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Journalism of Courage
THE RIVALRY between Congress leader and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar and the JD(S) first family of the Deve Gowdas, for dominance in the state’s Vokkaliga region, goes back nearly four decades.
A big part of that rivalry is centred around constituencies in Ramanagara district. Amidst mounting attacks by JD(S) heir apparent H D Kumaraswamy on Shivakumar, as the party seeks to regain its base in the old Mysore region, the latter has come out swinging.
The Deputy Chief Minister has announced that his constituency Kanakapura in Ramanagara district would soon be part of Bengaluru, and that Ramanagara district itself would be renamed Bengaluru South, with five taluks, and with Ramanagara as the district headquarters.
Kumaraswamy, whose constituency Channapatna is also in the district, has hit back; it was under Kumaraswamy as CM in 2007, when the JD(S) was in a coalition with the BJP, that Ramanagara, the party’s stronghold, was made a district.
Shivakumar has already managed to give the JD(S) a fight for the Vokkaliga base. In the recent Assembly elections, in which the Congress won big, the JD(S) showed a significant erosion in the region dominated by the Vokkaligas. In Ramanagara district, the JD(S) won just 1 seat, compared to the Congress’s 3.
In the 2018 Assembly polls, the JD(S) had won 3 seats here, with Kumaraswamy winning both Channapatna and Ramanagara, before vacating the second seat. His wife Anita had won it later in a bypoll.
In the May polls, Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil, who contested from Ramanagara, was among the JD(S) titans who lost.
Now, having aligned itself with the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, the JD(S) needs to hold on to its base to command a say.
Kumaraswamy declared Thursday that he would go on a fast unto death if the state government renamed Ramanagara. He also accused Shivakumar of “cheating” farmers who had handed over land to a 50-acre Karnataka Milk Federation mega dairy near Kanakapura by claiming around Rs 50 lakh per acre from the government and giving just Rs 50,000-Rs 1 lakh per acre to farmers.
Shivakumar has promised to respond in a few days to the allegations.
Beyond the Vokkaliga vote, the rivalry between the Congress leader and Deve Gowdas is personal. In 1985, Shivakumar had defeated Kumaraswamy from the erstwhile Sathanur Assembly constituency. In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, Shivakumar’s hand was seen in the defeat of Deve Gowda from the erstwhile Kanakapura constituency to a political novice, Thejaswini Gowda.
Deve Gowda had entered the Lok Sabha via the other seat he contested from, Hassan.
Shivakumar and Kumaraswamy were seen to have buried the hatchet during the JD(S)-Congress coalition government in 2018. But, like the alliance, this truce was short-lived.
