Vijayapura, represented by the Congress five times but held by the Bharatiya Janata Party for two decades, is the lone constituency in the State that has the Janata Dal (Secular) fielding a woman candidate in the coalition arrangement.
While BJP candidate and incumbent MP, Ramesh Jigajinagi, is seeking vote in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the JD(S) candidate, Sunita Chavan, is focussing on countering his “Modi mantra”.
While the district is drought prone, Indi taluk, Mr. Jigajinagi’s native, is facing acute drinking water problem. These issues, however, have remained invisible in the election campaign. In this reserved constituency, Dalits, Muslims and Banjaras play a decisive role and the focus of the political parties is to woo them.
Post-delimitation
When after delimitation the seat got reserved in 2009, equations within the larger Dalit community played a role in the elections. The BJP offered ticket to Mr. Jigajinagi, who belongs to the Madiga community among the Dalits, while the Congress offered ticket to Prakash Rathod of the Banjara community in the 2009 and 2014 elections. Mr. Jigajinagi won both times.
In this election, the Chalavadi community was hoping for Congress ticket. However, under the seat-sharing pact, the JD(S) got the seat and it chose a candidate from the Banjara community. The decision has upset the Chalavadi community. Added to this, there is also discontentment among local Congress leaders for having lost the seat to JD(S) despite its limited presence. Its impact is evident in the joint campaign.
In the last election, JD(S) candidate and former bureaucrat K. Shivaram secured 57,000 votes, while the Congress got over 3 lakh votes. At present, the Congress has three MLAs while the JD(S) has only two in the district.
Amidst this, Muslims who are in sizeable numbers and considered traditional voters of Congress, are said to be in a state of confusion as the Congress is not in the fray.
The BJP had a lone seat in 2013 and it gained two more in 2018, while the Congress reduced its tally from seven to three.
While technically the Congress and JD(S) alliance have better chances than the BJP, the “Modi factor” coupled with discontentment in the Chalavadi community and in Congress appears to have given BJP an edge over the others.
Backward district
Vijayapura remains a very backward district despite having enormous tourism potential given its rich historical legacy.
But this or any other issue of importance to this dry region has rarely found a resonance in electioneering by any party.
