As Siddaramaiah stakes prestige in Chamarajanagar fight, Congress guarantees his calling card

Karnataka was the first big state to go the Congress way after a long time, with last year’s win coming on the back of its promise of guarantees, rolled out over the course of the campaign. However, now the BJP campaign’s central theme, seeking to overshadow the Congress promises, is “Modi ki guarantee”.

While Modi is a factor in the urban regions of Chamarajanagar, the fact that the Siddaramaiah government has made at least some progress on its promises is helping it in rural areas.

Like with Devamma, a tribal who lives in the Karemala hamlet inside the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, among the lakh or so like her living in these parts (out of the constituency’s 17.78 lakh voters). She says her husband, who works as a forest watcher in the reserve, spends most of his earnings on alcohol. The Rs 2,000 she gets under the Congress government’s Gruha Lakshmi Scheme (guaranteeing the direct monthly cash transfer of that amount to women who are heads of BPL households in the state) helps her and her two children make ends meet. The ration from the state government’s Anna Bhagya Scheme is a bonus.

Chamarajanagar is one of the constituencies in Karnataka where women voters at 8.99 lakh outnumber men (around 8.7 lakh). In February, 2.59 lakh women in the constituency received Gruha Lakshmi benefits.

The Congress government ‘guarantee’ schemes, including Gruha Jyoti (200 units of free electricity to every household) and Gruha Lakshmi have been a success story in terms of votes. For the coming polls, the party has promised “25 guarantees”, including Rs 1 lakh annually for poor women.

Chamarajanagar has otherwise, too, been a Congress stronghold, with 2019 the only time the BJP won the seat. Its candidate then was influential Dalit leader Srinivas Prasad, who had moved from the Congress to the BJP in 2018. Prasad’s victory margin, though, was less than 2,000 votes.

The Chamarajanagar constituency, at a glance.

In last year’s state elections, of the eight Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha constituency, the Congress won seven, while the JD(S) got one. The BJP’s efforts here including rallies by Union Home Minister Amit Shah did not help.

Since then, the JD(S) has aligned with the BJP.

With Prasad announcing “retirement” from politics, the BJP has fielded S Balaraju, a former MLA from Kollegal, in Chamarajanagar district. The Congress candidate is Karnataka Public Works Department Minister H C Mahadevappa’s son Sunil Bose, with its candidate the past two times, R Dhruvanarayana, deceased.

Siddaramaiah has been doing his best to ensure the Congress wrests back Chamarajanagar, and recently met Srinivas Prasad as well as the family of late minister Mahadev Prasad, who belonged to the region.

The Congress has also been reaching out to beneficiaries of the Gruha Lakshmi and other schemes of the Siddaramaiah government, and distributing handbills detailing the 25 guarantees promised by the party for the Lok Sabha polls.

Top leaders of the BJP are so far missing from the campaign, with former CM B S Yediyurappa and his son and Karnataka party chief B Y Vijayendra expected to drop in for day. BJP candidate Balaraj recently met Srinivas Prasad, soon after Siddaramaiah had visited the sitting MP, to indicate that the BJP had Prasad’s support.

Chamarajanagar is one of the constituencies in Karnataka where women voters at 8.99 lakh outnumber men (around 8.7 lakh). In February, 2.59 lakh women in the constituency received Gruha Lakshmi benefits.

For Mahendraswamy, a youth in Chamarajanagar town, the past history of the seat notwithstanding, the Modi factor will work in the constituency. “Yes, the Assembly elections were a setback for the BJP but one should see where the country is heading. Economically the country has done well because of Modi. The borders of the country are safe,” he says.

But to Jayalakshmi, who lives in the tribal hamlet of Chennikatte within the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, this means little. Her hamlet has 34 ‘Soliga community houses’, less than 200 sq feet in area, built by the district administration nearly a decade ago. With most of the pucca houses now dilapidated, her extended family of 15 prefers sleeping in the open during summers despite fears of wildlife attack. When it rains, they have no choice but to squeeze into the space.

Jayalakshmi, 30, is a beneficiary of the Gruha Lakshmi and Gruha Jyoti schemes, but like previous elections, no politician has come calling to hamlets like hers, accessible only after a walk of 5-6 km inside the forest. Neither have the tribals figured in the promises made by the candidates.

“The only day workers from any political party visit us,” says Jayalakshmi, “is on voting day, to ferry us to our polling booth.”