The by-elections to three assembly seats in Karnataka—Shiggaon, Sandur and Channapatna—are scheduled for November 13. But the focus is firmly on Channapatna, a seat vacated by former chief minister and now Union minister H D Kumaraswamy after winning the Mandya Lok Sabha seat. While these three results will not swing the fortunes of the Congress, BJP or JDS, Channapatna has generated much heat and dust with a high-voltage battle between Kumaraswamy’s actor-son Nikhil and local heavyweight C P Yogeshwara. At stake are the personal reputations of three Vokkaliga leaders—Deputy CM D K Shivakumar, Kumaraswamy and Yogeshwara—in this largely Vokkaliga region. In effect, it’s a proxy battle between Shivakumar and Kumaraswamy.
There is no lack of colour in the contest. Yogeshwara, a five-term MLA, former MLC, actor and minister, who has contested from five parties in 10 elections, returned to the Congress after failing to get Kumaraswamy’s support as the BJP candidate. He has taken on Kumaraswamy a number of times, besides wife Anitha and now Nikhil, who is yet to find acceptance among voters in his father’s stomping ground. Nikhil got a shot in the arm with grandfather H D Deve Gowda reaching the electoral arena to support the youngster. The entry of the grand old man of Karnataka politics has ratcheted up the campaign, which has become more about an emotional Gowda and his family’s contributions. Tears have flowed to swing the reluctant voter. The focus has moved away from Yogeshwara’s work on lift irrigation projects that filled the region’s tanks and made him popular, forcing the Congress to play the ‘insider-outsider’ card against Nikhil.
The fight here is for Vokkaliga supremacy. If Kumaraswamy pulls off a win for his son in the face of the combined strength of Shivakumar and Yogeshwara, he can lay claim to the community’s chieftainship. If not, the Gowda family will have to take a step back. Also at stake is the family’s future hold on South Karnataka. Nikhil’s repeated attempts to make his political debut—as MP in Mandya in 2019 and MLA in Ramanagara in 2023—have failed. A third loss could push him into political wilderness; with H D Revanna’s family out of public favour, it could bring the Gowda family’s ambitions to nought.