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Journalism of Courage
At the gram panchayat office of Keragodu village — known for its multitude of temples dedicated to different deities — 14 km from the district headquarters of Mandya in south Karnataka, the Tricolour is hoisted on a newly-erected 108-ft-tall flagpole. Lower down, within a hand’s reach, are saffron Hanuman flags tied temporarily to the post.
A police van has been standing guard near the flagpole for nearly three months now, ever since after Republic Day, local Hindutva groups, backed by members of the JD(S) that controls the gram panchayat, demanded that the Hanuman flag be hoisted permanently on it.
A temporary hoisting of the Hanuman flag had been allowed on January 22 to mark the consecration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, but it was replaced with the national flag on Republic Day. The next day, the Hindutva groups took up the issue, resulting in a conflict.
With the Congress government adamant that it would allow only the Indian flag on the Keragodu flagpole, it has emerged as a Hindutva rallying point for not just the BJP but also its ally JD(S), which has traditionally battled the Congress in Mandya region. On January 29, leaders of both parties — including former CM H D Kumaraswamy — participated in a joint protest. Strikingly, Kumaraswamy, the joint candidate of the BJP and JD(S) from Mandya, which votes on April 26, sported a saffron stole during the protest, unlike the JD(S)’s usual green shawl.
It was a clear sign that, following its bruising defeat in the 2023 Karnataka Assembly polls, where it finished a distant third behind the Congress and BJP, the JD(S) had decided to embrace the Hindutva ideology for a revival in the Lok Sabha polls.
In Mandya, the JD(S), with its pro-farmer credentials and a dedicated Vokkaliga base, enjoys considerable support. An essentially farming community, the Vokkaligas comprise over 50% of the nearly 18 lakh voters across seven Assembly segments.
However, the BJP has gradually chipped away at the JD(S) support on the back of its Hindutva agenda and the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. If in 2018, the JD(S) won all the seven Mandya Assembly segments, in 2023, it won one, while the Congress won six. The JD(S) lost four of the seats by small margins, while the BJP’s vote share shot up.
After the 2023 election results, Prajwal Revanna, the lone JD(S) MP in the outgoing Lok Sabha and the grandson of JD(S) patriarch H D Deve Gowda, lamented: “In many places like Mandya, we lost seats as the BJP cut into our votes. Multiple visits of the PM to the Old Mysore region had an effect.”
The alliance with the BJP is seen as a last gasp for survival by the JD(S). The coming poll battle in the Vokkaliga heartland of Mandya is set to thus be the true test of their chemistry.
The JD(S) would have learnt its lessons from the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when Kumaraswamy’s son Nikhil, a film actor, lost from Mandya as the party’s partnership with the Congress failed to work on the ground. Both Congress and BJP workers are believed to have helped facilitate the win of Independent candidate Sumalatha Ambarish, the wife of former Congress leader M H Ambarish, from the seat. Recently, Sumalatha joined the BJP.
The BJP and JD(S) appear to have ironed out the wrinkles in their ties, with Kumaraswamy getting full support of the Hindutva brigade. Even JD(S) workers sceptical about the alliance have put their misgivings aside and are working for a win.
The BJP-JD(S) campaign slogan here is: “Modi for India, Kumaraswamy for Mandya”.
However, ahead of polling day, Hindutva is not the central issue here. As per Keragodu JD(S) leader M S Raghunandan, “It is the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu by the Karnataka Congress government, as a result of which the sugarcane and rice crops in Mandya have dried up. Kumaraswamy and Deve Gowda have always stood by farmers, and they will again receive their support.”
H N Ravindra, an aspirant who left the Congress after being denied the ticket from Mandya, alleging that the party had sold it to the highest bidder, said: “I don’t like saffron politics, but I’m supporting the JD(S)-BJP alliance because of Kumaraswamy. This region is not swayed by communal politics… Local issues of livelihood and self-respect take precedence.”
The Congress candidate is first-timer Venkataramane Gowda, a civil contractor and construction magnate, also known as Star Chandru, who has declared assets worth Rs 254 crore in his affidavit.
“The Congress is trying to win elections on money power and the party’s guarantees, but the real issue is the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu at the cost of Mandya’s farmers. This will cost the Congress,” said JD(S) worker Bhanu Prakash.
The state government had to release water as per multiple orders of the Cauvery Water Management Authority. However, Congress rivals are hoping to make it an issue as Mandya, which is heavily dependent on Cauvery water to irrigate water-intensive crops like sugarcane and paddy, has been suffering from losses since last year’s deficient monsoon. Tamil Nadu, which voted on Friday, has a DMK-led alliance government at the moment, which includes the Congress.
“Why should water be given to Tamil Nadu when there is no water for us here? My sugarcane crop dried up on my 1.5 acre plot… The JD(S) will get the farmers’ support,” said farmer Chandrashekhar Gowda at Maragondanahalli, dismissing the flag row.
The JD(S) is laying all the blame on state Congress chief and Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar, who aspires to be the next dominant Vokkaliga leader. “They were quietly releasing water to Tamil Nadu…. It will cost the Congress at least a lakh votes,” the JD(S)’s Bhanu Prakash said.
The Cauvery issue featured prominently at a coordination meeting of JD(S) and BJP workers held in Mandya on April 12, ahead of Modi’s pit-stop in neighbouring Mysore.
“To please Stalin (Tamil Nadu CM), they let our water stocks fall,” former JD(S) MLA from Melukote C S Puttaraju said at the meeting, while describing the party’s tie-up with the BJP as a “live-in relationship” that could continue after the polls.
Targeting local Congress MLA and state agriculture minister N Cheluvarayaswamy, Puttaraju accused him of being disrespectful towards Deve Gowda. He also claimed internal churning in the Congress against Cheluvarayaswamy. “That too will affect the Congress’s performance,” said Ravindra.
The biggest concerns for the NDA allies in Mandya are the guarantees promised by the Congress and the possibility of a consolidation of non-Vokkaliga, non upper-caste votes — Dalits, OBCs and minorities — in favour of the Congress, apart from a small section of the Vokkaligas.
“We have heard that the Congress is set to distribute guarantee cards. We don’t know how this will affect women and voters from the less dominant communities here,” said a JD(S) worker.
Abbas Ali Bohra, a Muslim JD(S) leader, is working to win at least some Muslim support for Kumaraswamy. “Muslims should back a winning candidate, else they will be taken for granted by the Congress. In the past, Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy have helped our masjids and other religious places in Mandya. We’re reminding them of this,” Bohra said, adding that both the Hindus and Muslims face the same problem of poverty and are interdependent on each other for livelihood. “There is peaceful coexistence, divisive issues don’t matter.”
On the Congress side, CM Siddaramaiah, an OBC, and Deputy CM Shivakumar have pitched their personal credentials as community leaders to win over the Kuruba, Muslim and Vokkaliga communities.
“The BJP-JD(S) has been downplaying the Congress guarantees by stating that they are being implemented with taxpayers’ money. But this could have the opposite effect — of consolidating the support of beneficiaries — especially among women and less dominant communities,” said Dalit leader Guruprasad Keragodu.
Keragodu, who is part of a group of progressive thinkers in Karnataka, cautioned against “any disrespect of Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy by Congress leaders”, saying the JD(S) would play up Vokkaliga pride. On the other communities the Congress is banking on, he said: “Dalits will reject the BJP because of the threat it poses to the Constitution. We’re also asking secular JD(S) leaders to support us.”
