BANGALORE: With the surprise candidature of Anita Kumaraswamy, the byelection to Madhugiri has assumed a star status.
Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda’s daughter-in-law is the first woman in the family to enter active politics. If she wins, Anita and Kumaraswamy would create a unique record in the annals of electoral politics by becoming the first couple to be elected to the same Legislative Assembly in Karnataka.
Only on one occasion in the state had a couple contested together.
It was in 2004 when former BMP corporator ‘Bomb’ Nagaraj and his wife contested from Bangalore.
There are however, various incidents of couples being elected at the same time to the Assembly. Kaushal Yadav and his wife Poornima Yadav from Bihar and Dharam Pal Yadav and Umlesh Yadav from UP are the two couples who have been elected the Assembly in 2005.
Kaushal and Poornima were elected as Independent candidates after they were denied RJD tickets by Lalu Prasad.
Dharam Pal and Umlesh got elected as Rashtriya Parivarthan Dal candidates in 2007 and merged the party with the BSP in 2008. Dharam is the father of Vikas Yadav, who is convicted in the Nitish Katara murder.