Mysuru: Will the nearly Rs 3000 Crore worth of developmental works undertaken during his five-year tenure enable the sitting Congress Member of Parliament from Chamarajanagar R Dhruvanarayana win for the third consecutive year or will the Modi wave spread across the country help BJP and Dalit leader Srinivasprasad who had earlier won five times from this very constituency emerge victorious for the sixth time?
In Chamarajanagar, one of the 28 parliamentary constituencies in Karnataka has been a Congress stronghold and its leader Dhruvanarayana has won twice from here since 2009. On the other hand, this election, Dhruvanarayana has a tough competitor in Srinivasprasad who, earlier, has contested Lok Sabha elections from Chamarajanagar seven times since 1980 and won four times from Congress and once from Janata Dal (United). The last Lok Sabha election he contested was in 1999. In the last parliamentary election, Congress candidate Dhruvanarayana had defeated BJP candidate A R Krishnamurthy by a margin of 1.41 lakh votes.
2019 Lok Sabha election:
Dhruvanarayana has the backing of coalition partner Janata Dal (S), however, it has come to light that except in Nanjangud and T Narasipur, he did not get wholehearted support from the coalition partner workers. Going by the ground reality, many people and even experts believe that it will be a tough fight between Dhruvanarayana and Srinivasaprasad. However, whoever wins, the victory will come with less margin of votes.
On the other side, Srinivasprasad who is being backed by the Modi wave also has an advantage from the Uppara Community voters. The NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently gave the ST tag to Uppara Community yielding to its long pending demand. It is believed that more than 50 per cent of Uppara Community people has voted for BJP in the recently concluded parliamentary election.
Speaking to Newskarnataka, Dhruvanarayana said, “I have no doubt about my victory but our confusion is the exit poll. The efforts by the party, programmes and developmental works which I had taken up in all the eight constituencies will really help me register victory in the election. I have never been away from my constituency. I share a very good rapport with my constituency people. The advantage BJP is having is the Modi Wave and senior leader Prasad himself. During the campaigning, BJP had sought votes for Prasad in the name of Modi. They did not speak about developmental works. I will not get a lead like previous in elections but will definitely win. The reason is unlike in Nanjangud and T Narasipur where we worked together with our coalition partner, we didn’t have a perfect understanding in other constituencies.”
One needs to wait and watch till May 23, whether Dhruvanarayana or senior politician and former Union Minister Srinivas Prasad will win. The counting will be held at the Government Engineering College on May 23. Elaborate security arrangements with CCTV cameras at vantage points have been made by district administration.
