How Karnataka Congress plans to use emotion & caste to win Bengaluru’s RR Nagar seat

Congress has fielded Kusuma H., widow of IAS officer D.K. Ravi, from the Rajarajeshwarinagar seat for the 3 November bypoll.

A file photo of Congress supporters. | Photo: Suraj Singh Bisht

Bengaluru: As it prepares for the 3 November assembly bypolls in Karnataka, the Congress has decided to play the emotional card in the Rajarajeshwarinagar constituency in Bengaluru with the candidature of Kusuma H., widow of deceased IAS officer D.K. Ravi.

According to senior Congress leaders, the party is planning to use caste and political muscle to wrest the seat away from rebel MLA Munirathna. He joined the BJP along with other Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) rebels in November 2019.

Kusuma, whose husband was a popular anti-corruption crusader who committed suicide in 2015, joined the Congress last week. Her father Hanumatharayyappa, a former JD(S) leader, also joined the Congress.

This week, she was named the Congress candidate for the by-polls.

Emotion & caste

The Congress is hopeful Kusuma will get sympathy votes for her late husband due to his popularity among the masses.

The 2009-batch IAS officer famously exposed the sand mafia in Kolar as well as tax evaders despite several death threats. However, he committed suicide in March 2015 amid allegations from his family that he was murdered. But the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) found otherwise.

Now, Kusuma is hoping to get votes in his name. However, she has already hit a roadblock in this direction, with Ravi’s mother Gawramma objecting to his name being used in the election campaign.

“I have struggled very hard to bring up my son and to fulfill his dream of becoming an IAS officer. Kusuma did not visit us after his death and remained disconnected. Why should she use my son’s name? Let her use her father’s name. If I see her using Ravi’s photo, I will set it on fire,” she said last week.

Kusuma subsequently dropped Ravi from her name and took her father’s name.

The Congress is also aiming to draw Vokkaliga votes for Kusuma, who belongs to the community, in RR Nagar. The party has a Vokkaliga vote bank in the constituency.

The seat has more than one lakh Vokkaliga voters, who traditionally support the JD(S) and Congress. The party also enjoys the support of Ahindas (the Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits), who form another 20 per cent of voters in the constituency.

Munirathna won the RR Nagar seat twice with the support of the Ahindas, and, partially, the Vokkaliga votes.

In the 2018 elections, Munirathna polled 1.08 lakh votes, followed by around 82,000 by BJP’s Muniraju Gowda and over 60,000 by JD(S) candidate G.H. Ramachandra.

By-election to the seat was necessitated after Munirathna resigned from Congress. But a court case over voter ID cards recovered from a flat linked to Munirathna delayed the election.

“The good part of when a sitting candidate leaves the party is that you can go back to the drawing board. In Kusuma’s case, we have found a fresh face, a woman candidate and one from a strong based community. She will be able to galvanise newer faces to vote while having a strong hold over the traditional vote bank,” said Karnataka Congress spokesperson Nivedith Alva.

Not a cakewalk, say analysts

Political analyst Sandeep Shastri said the Congress strategy is to wait and watch the two strong candidates, Munirathna and T. Muniraju, who are vying for the BJP ticket from the seat, undercut each other.

“This has always been a strategy of both the BJP and the Congress that they give tickets to women only if it is a basket case. This is not a gender discriminatory statement, but an often-seen scenario. If they win, it’s good for the party, if not, parties can say despite giving it to a woman, the seat was not won,” he said.

Mahadeva Prakash, a political analyst, said RR Nagar has traditionally been a BJP stronghold, until Munirathna captured it in the 2014 assembly polls.

“But the situation has changed now. If the BJP fields Munirathna, who is a rebel Congress leader, it will hurt the sentiments of the loyal BJP leader T. Muniraju who also has a large Vokkaliga base. In that scenario, the BJP should take precautionary measures to keep the Vokkaliga votes in their favour,” Prakash said.

The Congress, however, defended its decision. “There is a need to bring in younger fresher candidates to draw new voters to the party. The Ahinda vote bank supported not just Munirathna but they supported the Congress party. There were issues with court cases involving him. That in a way makes it beneficial for the party that he left. We will now be able to fight from scratch,” Alva added.