New Delhi: Janata Dal (Secular)’s Nikhil Kumaraswamy is likely to lose the election battle from Ramanagaram, While his father, former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, and uncle HD Revanna are leading from their respective seats, Channapatna and Holenarasipura, respectively.
As per the Election Commission trends till 2 pm, Nikhil was trailing HA Iqbal Hussain of Congress by 10,846 votes.
Nikhil, grandson of former PM and JD(S) supremo HD Deve Gowda, is the eighth member of the family to enter electoral politics. His previous outing – in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls – had also ended in defeat.
Meanwhile, Kumaraswamy – who was heading the Congress-JD(S) government when it fell in 2019 – had a lead of 3,610 votes ahead of his nearest rival CP Yogeshwar of the BJP,
Till 2 pm, Revanna had a lead of 5,548 votes over Shreyas M. Patel of the Congress.
Deve Gowda Family
In 1996 – two years after being elected Chief Minister of Karnataka – Deve Gowda became Prime Minister.
Kumaraswamy has served as the Chief Minister of Karnataka twice – first with the support of the BJP, between 2006 and 2007, and again between 2018 and 2019, in alliance with the Congress. His brother Revanna served as the Public Works Minister in the Kumaraswamy government between 2018 and 2019.,
While Kumaraswamy’s wife Anitha was an MLA in the previous assembly, Revanna’s wife Bhavani is a former Zilla Parishad member and his two sons Prajwal and Suraj are also in politics. Prajwal is a Lok Sabha MP (Hassan) while Suraj is a member of the Legislative Council (Hassan).
Considering the number of family members in electoral politics The JD(S) has often been at the receiving end of the BJP’s campaign against “dynastic politics”, the party is often called ,Appa-Maklu (father-children)” party.
Responding to this in a tweet in July last year, Kumaraswamy had said: “I know that ‘BJP is a link to family politics’. Should I expose countrywide family politics in BJP? Talking about family politics in the states ruled by you, one can write ‘parivarkoti’.
Nikhil & Ramanagaram
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Nikhil lost to independent Sumalatha Ambareesh from Mandya, the seat of agrarian politics in the state.
This time, however, the party decided to field him from a safe seat,
Ramanagaram (or Ramanagara) is considered a family stronghold. It was this assembly seat that gave Deve Gowda a new lease of life in the 1994 assembly elections after losing from his 1989 stronghold Holenarasipur. After this he became the CM.
Since 1999, Ramanagaram has remained with the JD(S) – mainly the Gowda family.
Kumaraswamy has been elected thrice from this seat – in 2004, 2008 and 2013. In 2018, the constituency elected Anita with a margin of 1 lakh votes in a by-election. The by-election was held as Kumaraswamy had contested and won two seats, and chose to retain Channapatna.
Former CM HD Kumaraswamy
In 2018, Kumaraswamy had won Channapatna by a margin of 21,530 votes. this time his nearest rival Channapatna’s former MLA is CP Yogeshwar, who has won the seat four times, and it was considered a high-stakes fight. Both the candidates belong to the Vokkaliga community.
The third candidate is Gangadhar of Congress. S was third till 2 pm with just 4,700 votes against Kumaraswamy’s 34,322 and Yogeshwar’s 30,712.
hd ravenna live again
Deve Gowda’s second son HD Revanna is leading for the sixth time in Holenarsipur in Hassan district.
Except in 1989 and 1999, the family has won the seat continuously since 1962 – first under the leadership of Deve Gowda and then Revanna.
Congress candidate Shreyas M. Patel had 77,720 votes till 2 pm, while BJP’s Devaraje Gowda got 4,452 votes against Revanna’s 83,268.
Hassan is considered the stronghold of the Gowda family. Lok Sabha seat of the same name, which Deve Gowda represented for 15 years in 1991, 1998 and again in 2004 and 2019It is currently held by his grandson Prajwal Revanna.
In January, HD Revanna’s wife Bhavani had announced her intention to contest the assembly polls from Hassan, but Kumaraswamy shelved the plans. Instead, party patriarch Deve Gowda decided to field HP Swarup. Announcing Swarup’s candidature, Revanna said at a press conference: “Mr Gowda’s health is of paramount importance to us. Ms. Bhavani felt it strongly and expressed her desire to leave the seat. No one can bring a rift between brothers”.
Swaroop Haasan is leading in the assembly seat by 84,005 votes, while his nearest rival Pritam J Gowda of BJP is leading by 75,110 votes.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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