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Journalism of Courage
The man at the centre of one of the biggest political scandals of Karnataka politics has never been known to mind his words — or his party JD(S).
Denied a ticket to contest from Hunsur in the Karnataka Assembly elections in 2018, Prajwal Revanna, the grandson of JD(S) founder H D Deve Gowda, had said he would abide by the party’s decision, but lashed out, saying: “The party is promoting suitcase (or money) culture.”
As the JD(S) now tries to survive the damage arising from hundreds of videos allegedly showing him abusing many women, Prajwal is himself said to be in Germany – having flown out just a day after polling was over for the Hassan Lok Sabha seat from where he is re-contesting, and days before the allegations broke.
While rebelliousness and outspokenness can be the undoing of a politician, Prajwal, 33, has picked enough tricks of the trade. In that, he is said to have had the guiding hand of his mother Bhavani Revanna, who comes from a political family of Krishnarajanagar and is, by all accounts, the main driving force behind the ambitions of this side of the Deve Gowda family tree.
An engineering graduate, Prajwal, the son of Deve Gowda’s elder son H D Revanna, studied M.Tech in Australia. However, just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, he came home and plunged straight into politics. Just 24 at the time, he was soon a prominent presence by Deve Gowda’s side in the old Mysuru region, which is a JD(S) bastion, mingling easily with people.
The competing branch of the family tree, led by H D Revanna’s younger brother and former CM H D Kumaraswamy, didn’t miss the signs. And a rivalry was born, that has continued to dog the JD(S).
In fact, no sooner had the damaging allegations against Prajwal broke than Kumaraswamy distanced himself from them, saying that his father Deve Gowda and he “have always respected women”.
On Tuesday, the JD(S) led by Kumaraswamy announced the suspension of Prajwal till an SIT set up by the state Congress government submits its report.
A former JD(S) worker rues “the sense of insecurity within the family”. “Kumaraswamy wants his son Nikhil to be the political heir of the Deve Gowda name, and Bhavani wants her son Prajwal. H D Revanna has little say in these things, with every move watched closely by the two sides.”
Bhavani herself was at one point keen on a ticket and made several attempts 2013 onwards for the Krishnarajanagar seat. However, Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy were seen to have blocked it.
But it was the denial of a ticket to Prajwal in the 2018 Assembly elections that took the infighting within the family to another level.
Then came 2019. After Nikhil Kumaraswamy got the Lok Sabha ticket from Mandya, a family pocket borough, pressure bore down on Deve Gowda to accommodate Prajwal too.
Finally, torn between the demands by his sons’ families, Deve Gowda gave up his own stronghold of Hassan for Prajwal.
While announcing Prajwal as the Hassan candidate, Deve Gowda, in tears like his grandson, made an emotional declaration that Hassan would elect the youngster. “And if Deve Gowda says it, more than half the voters in Hassan abide,” a JD(S) worker says.
And they did, handing the debutant Prajwal 53% of the votes, in the election where the JD(S) and Congress were allies, surpassing even the votes for Deve Gowda in 2014.
Meanwhile, the veteran leader and former prime minister himself lost from the Tumakuru Lok Sabha seat, to the BJP’s G S Basavaraj, while Nikhil was defeated in Mandya.
In the fight for supremacy between the Revanna and Kumaraswamy sides, that defeat stung – and there were allegations of the other side being involved in Nikhil losing.
In his one and only term as an MP, a former JD(S) worker says, Prajwal was a disappointment, not making much of an impact in the House and remaining inaccessible to people of the constituency. “In the five years, Prajwal never held a press meeting. He never shared the questions he asked in Parliament related to Hassan. To this day, his father Revanna handles matters in the seat,” the party worker says.
This time, even before the announcement of the BJP and JD(S) alliance, Deve Gowda had declared Prajwal as the candidate from Hassan. Neither the BJP nor Kumaraswamy was apparently too happy.
A JD(S) leader from Hassan says that while it seems the end of the road for Prajwal, “you never know”. “The Deve Gowda family can do impossible things in Hassan politics.”
