In a keenly contested election, Sunil Bose of the Congress won the Chamarajanagar (reserved) Lok Sabha constituency by a big margin of 1,88,706 votes, defeating his nearest rival S. Balaraj of the BJP. With this victory, the Congress has wrested the seat from the saffron party.
The victory in Chamarajanagar has come as a big relief for Chief Minister Siddaramaiah for whom the constituency was a prestigious one like Mysuru Lok Sabha constituency where the Congress was defeated. The Varuna assembly constituency that the Chief Minister represents falls in the Chamarajanagar Lok Sabha constituency, and Mr Siddaramaiah had actively campaigned for the party candidate’s victory.
If the Congress was leaving no stone unturned to wrest the seat from the BJP, the saffron party was also waging a determined fight to retain the seat that it won for the first time in 2019. In the end, the Congress managed to retain its grip in the constituency which is reckoned to be its stronghold.
Mr. Bose secured a whopping 7,51,671 votes while Mr. Balaraj polled 5,62,965 votes. Bahujan Samaj Party candidate M. Krishna Murthy bagged 15,903 votes.
A jubilant Congress workers and supporters celebrated Mr. Bose’s victory after he was declared a winner.
BJP’s V. Srinivas Prasad, who passed away recently, had won the seat in the 2019 election. He had defeated the then-incumbent Congress MP R. Dhruvanarayan by a slim margin.
The Congress party was positive of winning the seat since the beginning though the BJP did take the election in the backward district seriously with its top leaders holding election campaigns. Out of eight assembly constituencies coming under Chamarajanagar constituency, seven are held by the Congress. Kollegal, Chamarajanagar, Gundlupet, and Hanur (all in Chamarajanagar district) and H.D. Kote, Nanjangud, Varuna, and T. Narasipur (in Mysuru district) are part of the constituency. While the BJP holds none, JD(S) represents the Hanur seat.
Consistent Leads
Mr. Bose has been gaining leads since the start of the counting. Almost in every round of vote count, he secured leads of around 5,000 to 10,000 votes from his rival.
A ‘son’ rise in Chamarajanagar
Son of Minister for Social Welfare and in charge of Mysuru district H.C. Mahadevappa, Mr. Bose, who was aspiring to contest the last assembly elections, emerged triumphant with his father by his side to support and campaign for him. The party fielded Ministers’ children in the crucial poll battle and Mr. Bose was one of them.
Though Mr. Mahadevappa, the MLA for T. Narasipura, was the party’s first choice, he refused to enter the poll fray and instead lobbied for his son. So it was also a battle of prestige for Dr. Mahadevappa, who had been tasked to get his son elected like other Ministers whose children were in the poll fray.
As the Chamarajanagar poll was seen as a prestige battle for Mr. Siddaramaiah, the Chief Minister even called on Mr. Prasad, who had announced retirement from electoral politics, in the run-up to the polls, sparking political speculations. It was their first meeting after a long gap as the two had not been on speaking terms since 2016. The late Mr. Prasad’s support was considered key in the constituency. Mr. Mahadevappa, Mr. Bose, and Mr. Balaraj had also called on Mr. Prasad ahead of the polls and sought his support.
During the campaign, an upbeat Mr. Bose was largely banking on the Congress guarantee schemes and was confident of ending the saffron party’s term by recapturing the seat. A soft-spoken Mr. Balaraj was relying on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image in his campaigns.
Mr. Bose received the certificate (Form 21E) of his victory issued by the Election Commission from Deputy Commissioner and Returning Officer Shilpa Nag.
