Chamundeshwari, which has attracted national attention as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah is contesting the seat, is a largely semi-urban constituency on the outskirts of Mysuru.
Over the past decade or two, swathes of agricultural land here has been reclaimed either for real estate, spawning many layouts and townships, or industrial estates. The constituency is home to 2,500 large, medium and small-scale industrial units in at least six industrial estates. But a majority of the estimated 1.5 lakh workers in these units are not voters here.
The people of the constituency appear to be evincing a lot of interest in the high-profile election, if the revision of electoral rolls is taken into account. The highest increase in the number of voters among the 11 constituencies in Mysuru was recorded in Chamundeshwari. During the quick registration exercise held on April 8, an additional 7,760 voters were enrolled, taking the total number of voters to 2.96 lakh from 2,39,448 in 2013.
Home turf
The constituency had been Mr. Siddaramaiah’s home turf ever since he contested an Assembly seat for the first time in 1983 till the delimitation exercise redrew its boundaries and created the Varuna constituency out of it in 2008. His village, Siddaramanahundi, around 20 km from Mysuru city, was part of the pre-delimited Chamundeshwari from where he won five of the seven Assembly elections he contested. The constituency drew widespread public attention when Mr. Siddaramaiah quit the JD(S) and sought re-election to the Assembly as a Congress candidate in the 2006 by-polls. He managed to win the bitterly fought elections, though by a narrow margin of 257 votes, which he described as his “political re-birth”.
Mr. Siddaramaiah, however, shifted to Varuna in 2008. For his son Yathindra’s electoral debut, Mr. Siddaramaiah vacated Varuna, which is considered a “safer” seat for the Congress, and returned to Chamundeshwari, where he is facing a stiff challenge from Janata Dal(S) MLA G.T. Deve Gowda. The BJP has fielded little-known Gopal Rao, which the Congress says is a “tactical” move to help the JD(S). The Vokkaligas, who from a significant percentage of the population here, are the traditional support base of the JD(S). Mr. Siddaramaiah is banking on the popularity of his “bhagya’’ schemes to sail through with his supporters in Kuruba, Dalit and other communities.
