Traditionally, a Congress bastion, which has only been breached twice in the recent times by the BJP, the Mysore Lok Sabha constituency with eight Assembly segments throws up both urban-specific and rural issues for political parties in the fray. With 16,77,428 voters in the constituency, of whom 8,32,661 are women and 8,44,767 voters are men, the stakes are high for the Congress as Mysore is also the home turf of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Though the Congress has won eight of the 10 elections held since 1977, the BJP managed to wrest the seat from the Congress on two occasions (1998 and 2004) and with the victory margin gradually shrinking — as evident in the results of the last three Parliamentary elections — the constituency is no longer a “safe seat” by any reckoning. The constituency has a blend of Vokkaligas, Kurubas, Dalits, Lingayats, Naiks and religious minorities, and caste equations, as in most other constituencies, play a significant role in the final outcome here.
After 2009 delimitation, the constituency comprises Krishnaraja, Narasimharaja, Chamaraja, Hunsur, Piriyapatna and Chamundeshwari Assembly segments from Mysore district and Madikeri and Virajpet Assembly segments from Kodagu district.
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Kodagu was part of the Mangalore Lok Sabha constituency before it was amalgamated with Mysore after the delimitation.
Geographically, Mysore-Kodagu Lok Sabha constituency is part of the Cauvery basin. Drained by two major rivers, the Cauvery and the Kapila, the economy is agrarian with the bulk of the country’s tobacco and coffee cultivated in the region. Tourism is another important sector having a bearing on the local economy of both Mysore and Kodagu and the city’s proximity to India’s Silicon Valley has helped Mysore emerge as an investment destination with potential, altering the region’s social profile in the recent times.
However, no single issue dominates the eight Assembly segments of the Parliamentary constituency. The three urban constituencies of Krishnaraja, Narasimharaja and Chamaraja have city-specific issues raised by stakeholders such as the Mysore Industries Association, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Confederation of Indian Industry seeking the constitution of an Industrial Township Authority, infrastructure to woo investors and related issues to put the economy on a fast throttle. In the rural hinterland of Piriyapatna and Hunsur, issues related to tobacco cultivators engage the attention of the parties, while further west, coffee growers have their say. As part of the erstwhile Mysore kingdom, the region basked under the patronage of the Wadiyars. The period during the later Wadiyars saw the transformation of Mysore as a model city with emphasis on industrialisation and education.
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Also, the region has a history of vibrant political activism which evolved during the freedom struggle, and in response to popular demand, Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV introduced reservation in jobs for backward class groups in the State services (1919), a forerunner to the reservation system after Independence.
Not surprisingly, the last scion of the royal family, Srikantadutta Narasimharaja Wadiyar, was elected four times as people reposed goodwill in the Wadiyars whose contribution to the development of the region has been eulogised by historians. The recent passing away of Srikantadutta Wadiyar saw a flurry of activity by the political parties who tried to invite his wife Pramoda Devi Wadiyar to join them with a view to cashing in on public sentiment but to no avail. Now, this leaves the contest wide open.