Who will be 'raja' of Krishnaraja?

Parties try to encash on the Brahmin-dominated Assembly constituency by fielding a candidate of the community

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Krishnaraja Mohalla, one of the old mohallas of Mysore bearing the name of the Maharaja, forms part of the Krishnaraja constituency, hence the name. It is among the three Assembly constituencies in Mysore, where Brahmins dominate and hence political parties try to encash on this by generally fielding a candidate of the community.

After H Gangadharan, who had won twice in 1978 and 1983 on Jan Sangh (present BJP), this constituency has seen three Brahmin candidates emerging victorious except for once when M K Somashekar defeated the present district incharge Minister S A Ramadas in 2004.

Prior to Ramadas, two other Brahmin candidates who had won from the constituency were Somasundaram (Congress) and Vedantha Hemmige (Janata Dal). But in 1994 Ramadas defeated Hemmige and won the next election too. However, he missed setting a hatrick in 2004, though he made good in 2008, taking revenge against Somashekar who had by then switched to the Janata Dal and then to Congress in the footsteps of his leader Siddaramaiah.

Thus, Krishnaraja has witnessed a battle between Ramadas and Somasekhar in three successive elections. But, this time, with the entry of another Brahmin candidate H V Rajeev of the KJP, the contest has turned triangular and has become more curious too. Besides the three, 16 other candidates are in the fray, some of whom, like H Vasu of Janata Dal (S) are not lagging in campaigning.

The predominantly Brahmin constituency took a different shape with the merger of new areas following the delimitation in 2008, resulting in an expansion in size and number of voters. Now, it has 215,995 voters, 14,693 more than the last time.

While Somashekar had to wait for the party's clearance to launch his campaign, Ramadas had a headstart and began his door-to-door campaign in earnest. He has been vigorously nursing his constituency through his 'Aasare Foundation' doling out benefits to voters. This and his 'unfulfilled' promises have come to be aggressively attacked by his opponents during their campaign.

A very recent development in the constituency is the division among some Brahmin leaders with each openly coming out against the other, damaging not only their image but also that of the community. One or two leaders have overnight changed sides. However, this is unlikely to make much impact on the community as such.

For the BJP MLA, it is the fifth successive battle and for his immediate rival Somashekar it is the fourth fight against Ramadas, while for Rajeev it is the first time. Though educated are more in numbers, the voting percentage has remained below 60 per cent in all the elections, exception in 1978 when 63.37 per cent turnout was recorded. Even in the last election, it was only 56.01 per cent, with the educated responding poorly.

With BJP's image dented and a KJP candidate of his own community challenging him, will the district minister succeed in taking advantage of the likely distribution of votes or will Krishnaraja vote a new 'Raja' to the Assembly, one has to wait to know the answer?