With history-sheeter Manikanth Rathod throwing his hat into the ring as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate to take on Congress leader Priyank Kharge at Chittapur (SC) in Kalaburagi district, the constituency is likely to witness a bitter poll battle. Mr. Priyank, the spokesperson of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee and incumbent MLA, is expecting a hat-trick.
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Chittapur has traditionally been a Congress stronghold. Of the 14 general elections and one byelection held in the constituency since 1957, Congress has won 11. Vishwanath Patil Hebbal has won three elections – two on the Janata Party ticket and one on Janata Dal (Secular) ticket. BJP won a byelection. Mr. Hebbal later switched to BJP.
Congress veteran M. Mallikarjun Kharge (now All India Congress Committee president), who represented Gurumitkal (SC) constituency for eight consecutive terms in the Assembly moved to Chittapur in 2008 after Gurmitkal became the General constituency and Chittapur was reserved for SCs. He won his ninth election from here. However, he resigned as MLA after he won the 2009 Lok Sabha elections from the Gulbarga segment necessitating the byelection in which his son Priyank Kharge was fielded. BJP’s Valmiki Naik defeated Mr. Priyank with a margin of 1,606 votes to open his party’s account in the constituency. But in 2013, Mr. Priyank defeated Mr. Naik with a margin of 31,178 votes and entered the Assembly. He became the IT and BT Minister in 2016 under the Siddaramaiah-led Congress Government. In 2018, Mr. Priyank again won against the same candidate, but with a margin of only 4,219 votes.
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Mr. Priyank appeared to be in an advantageous position as the BJP did not have a strong candidate, after the demise of Valmiki Naik in 2021. Baburao Chinchansur, who had quit Congress and joined BJP after the 2018 elections, returning to Congress was an added advantage in the region in fetching votes of Koli community.
Over 40 cases
But the calculations are not the same after the entry of Mr. Rathod, a history-sheeter with 40 pending cases against him in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana, ranging from illegal transportation of Anna Bhagya rice to crimes such as attempt to murder and drugs and narcotics smuggling. Kalaburagi City Police Commissioner had banished him from the city in September last year. However, he secured a stay for the order from the court.
On the other hand, Mr. Rathod has filed a complaint with the Lokayukta against Mr. Mallikarjun Kharge and Mr. Priyank alleging misappropriation of public lands allocated to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Smarak Kalyana. He had also alleged that he had a threat to his life from the Kharges. In a press conference, Mr. Rathod expressed his readiness to “shoot down” Mr. Priyank. However, the BJP’s decision to give him the ticket has also upset many senior leaders in the party, some of whom have joined Congress.
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Caste equation
The biggest problem for Mr. Rathod is that his community, the Lambani, is not decisive in the constituency. It has around 15,000 votes as compared to around 25,000 voters of SC-Right which Mr. Priyank belongs to. The strong community in the constituency is Lingayats with an estimated 65,000 votes. Popular Lingayat leaders like former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar and former Deputy Chief Minister Laxman Savadi, besides local leaders, quitting the BJP, is expected to make a difference. Mr. Hebbal is a popular leader among Panchamasali Lingayats which is a dominant community with around 65,000 votes in the constituency.
However, the BJP is not ready to give up, particularly given the fact that Mr. Priyank has been a stringent critic of the saffron party, outspoken during episodes like the alleged Bitcoin scam and PSI recruitment scam.
In an interesting development, Subhashchandra Rathod, a Principal Civil Judge and JMFC court Judge at Gadag, resigned from service to contest the Assembly elections from Chittapur as JD(S) candidate. How the entry of a man belonging to Lambani community would impact the equation remains to be seen.