ENARADA, Hubli
By Mathihalli Madan mohan
Mr. H N Ananth Kumar, one of the General Secretaries of the BJP finds himself in dire straits as the elections to the 16th Loksabha are fast approaching.
The five- time MP from South Bangalore in row, finds that party’s vote basis in his constituency has suffered serious erosion in the 2013 assembly election and the homecoming of B S Yeddyurappa has hardly improved the position. Added to this has been fact that Congress is putting up the software IT wizard Nandan Nilekani of the Unique Identification Authority Scheme, popularly known as the Aadhar system as its candidate against him.
Ananth Kumar literally scraped through with a margin of 21,000 in his debut election in 1996 against Varalaxmi Gundurao, the wife of the former Chief Minister R Gundurao. The next three elections hardly posed any problem, Kumar etching a facile victory. But the going proved to be tough in 2009 against Krishna Byregowda, currently the Minister for Agriculture, when the social media became an integral part of election campaign and Kumar had to literally huff and puff in bringing about a victory with modest margin 37,000 votes. Mr. Ananth Kumar polled 4.37 lakh votes as against 4.00 lakh votes of Mr. Krishna Byregowda. The position Ananth Kumar would have been worse, had not the voters of Bommanahalli assembly constituency given him lead of 17,000 votes, the highest that he got among the assembly election.
In the 2013 election, the two parties shared the honours equally in the eight assembly segments forming part of the parliamentary constituency of Bangalore South. But the Congress had overtaken BJP in the votes tally. It got an additional support of 11,000 votes over what it had secured in the 2009 parliamentary poll and its vote base stood at 4.11 lakhs. On the other hand, suffered a massive erosion to the extent of 63,000 votes over its performanance in the parliament election and ended up with only 3.54 lakh votes, The Congress won Govindrajnagar, Vijayanagar, Chikpet, and BTM seats, while the BJP won the Basavangudi, Padmananabh Nagar, Jayanagar, and Bommanahalli. The only consolation, if it can be called so for BJP was that not all the erosion of its base benefitted the Congress. The Congress gain was limited to 11,000 votes only.
Even after the return of Yeddyurappa to the party fold did not bring comfort to the BJP in any appreciable manner as has happened elsewhere. The gap between the Congress and BJP got reduced to 57,000 votes. And under the circumstances, overhauling the gap to retain the seat is by no means an easier task even for a seasoned politician like Mr. Ananth Kumar.
On the face of it, the impending electoral battle between Mr. Ananth Kumar and Mr. Nandan Nilekani is something akin to fight between Goliath and David. It should not be normally difficult for politician of the stature of Mr. Ananth Kumar who is among the pantheon of national leaders of BJP, a rival centre of power in Karnataka in BJP and with enough experience of the rough and tumble of politics. Mr. Nilekani for all his stature in the realm of IT sector is basically a political novice. His only connection with politics has been the chance that he got from Prime Minister Dr Man Mohan Singh to work on the UDAI project.
But surprisingly Mr. Ananth Kumar is worried over by the candidature of Nandan Nilekani. This is evident from the peevish remarks which lack in civility he has been making about the electoral to be. He has needlessly bitchy in his criticism of Mr. Nilekani. He has charged Nilekani as endorsing the Congress regime steeped in corruption, and being responsible for price rise in the country, obviously glossing over the record of corruption indulged in by his own party government on his home turf in Karnataka.
Besides there are clear signs of the change of political perception of the voters of the constituency which has been reckoned as Anti Congress bastion.
Can Mr. Ananth Kumar pull off a victory amidst all these adverse factor to retain the seat for the 6th time in a row? If he does it, he would be next only to late B Shankaranand, former Union Minister, who has record of seven wins from Chikkodi in Northern Karnataka before he could meet the Waterloo.
(Posted on February 6 , 2014 @ 4.30 pm)
(Author is a Senior Journalist and Columnist. Mobile: +91 94480 74872 Email : madan.mm@gmail.com)
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