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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  Karnataka polls: Why Badami is key to securing another term for Siddaramaiah
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Karnataka polls: Why Badami is key to securing another term for Siddaramaiah

In Karnataka assembly polls, chief minister Siddaramaiah is depending on local leaders to help swing the voter base in his favour in his constituency Badami

Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah. The Congress leader will contest the assembly elections from Badami and Chamundeshwari seats.Premium
Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah. The Congress leader will contest the assembly elections from Badami and Chamundeshwari seats.

Badami (Bagalkot): Away from his bastion and even further away from his brand of politics, Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah has picked a tough battle in Badami, lying 510km away from the state capital Bengaluru.

In a place completely different from the southern parts of the state he is used to, Siddaramaiah has been forced to depend on local strongmen like Yemkanmardi legislator and sugar baron Satish Laxmanrao Jarakiholi and Congress working president S.R. Patil from surrounding regions to persuade the local voter. So much so that he has campaigned in Badami in Bagalkot district only twice —once for nomination.

With assembly election less than a week away, local leaders are not relying solely on around 45,000 Kurubas, a shepherd community to which Siddaramaiah belongs. For Siddaramaiah, who is contesting from Badami and Chamundeshwari in Mysuru, winning both seats has become important to help him cement his claim for five more years in the top job, if the Congress manages to win with a majority.

According to Jarakiholi, there are at least 50,000 Lingayats, 25,000 scheduled tribes (STs), an equal number of scheduled caste (SC) members and about 20,000 Muslims in Badami, apart from smaller communities.

Jarakiholi, who hails from the Valmiki community (classified as ST), is trying to swing votes from this caste grouping and away from B. Sriramulu, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongman and close aide of mining baron G. Janardhana Reddy. Sriramulu also is from the Valmiki community.

BJP, which considers the region its stronghold, fielded Sriramulu against Siddaramaiah as a last-hour resort to counter the chief minister’s bid in his second seat in Badami, which made the heritage city one of the keenly watched constituencies among the 224 seats in the state. The BJP has teamed up with the Janata Dal (Secular) in Chamundeshwari to defeat Siddaramaiah, under whose leadership the Congress is trying to win a second consecutive term in office—a feat not achieved by any political party in the state in decades.

Lingayats, believed to be the single largest community in the state and Badami, are a factor that is currently not siding with the Congress, Jarakiholi says.

About 10km from the badly dug up roads of the town centre of the heritage city, is Shivayogi Mandir, one of the biggest spiritual centres of Lingayats, which is seen going against the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government’s decision to accord minority religion status to the community. Shivayogi Mandir, that is part of the All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha—considered a representative body of the community—is the centre where all of the head seers of many influential Lingayat mathas (monasteries) are trained. Interestingly, most of the head pontiffs of these other Mathas, whose seers were trained in Shivayogi Mandir, have backed Siddaramaiah’s decision, while the head seer of spiritual headquarters, whose political influence spreads across the district, did not even meet the chief minister when the former visited the spiritual headquarters on Saturday. The All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha, led by senior Congress leader Shamnur Shivashankarappa, has openly opposed the decision to accord minority religion status and, more importantly, introduce a distinction between the Lingayats and Veerashaivas, considered a sub-sect of the community.

The JD(S) has fielded Hanamantha Mavinmarad, a Lingayat, who will also eat into some of the community’s vote. Though the Congress won Badami in 2013, local leaders from the party say that many communities had decided to go with the JD(S) until Siddaramaiah’s nomination in Badami was finalized.

“They broke up our society," says Hotel Balappa, a 56-year-old from Kuttanakeri, a village with about 2,000 votes. However, villagers here, among other surrounding areas, do not consider the separate religion status for Lingayats as the determining factor before they cast their vote—almost nullifying the move that, apart from being called a masterstroke, was aimed at splitting BJP’s main support base.

Locals and party leaders say that the AHINDA (acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits) support base of Siddaramaiah also cannot be taken for granted.

For Siddaramaiah, who has only once ventured out of Mysuru to contest an election in his almost four-decade old career, Badami could well become his biggest battle yet.

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Published: 06 May 2018, 01:42 PM IST
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