BJP may find the going tough in Mysore

The announcement of the candidature of former Mysore district in-charge minister H Viswanath and the overwhelming clout former deputy chief minister Siddaramaiah enjoys in the region is likely to pose a big challenge for the BJP in the Mysore parliamentary constituency.

Sitting BJP candidate C H Vijayashankar is way ahead of the other two chief challengers, Viswanath of the Congress and B A Jeeviaya of the Janata Dal (S), in the election campaign run as he has already completed one round of campaign.

However, the announcement of Viswanath as the Congress candidate will make the BJP work overtime to meet the challenge posed by the former district in-charge minister on the one hand and the popularity of Siddaramaiah on the other.

Coming from the same Kuruba community as Vijayashankar, Viswanath might split the Kuruba votes in the constituency. Apart from this challenge, Viswanath, as the former district in-charge minister and former minister for Kannada and culture, is well known in the constituency.

Siddaramaiah is a popular and influential leader in the region, especially in Mysore district. He too began the campaign early without waiting for the candidates to be announced by the party. The former deputy chief minister was successful in having a good number of his supporters elected to the Assembly in the last Assembly elections.

R Dhruvanarayan has been given a ticket from the Chamarajanagar constituency, against the hopeful M Shivanna, a sitting MP, who backed the Congress at a crucial juncture in Lok Sabha, deserting the Janata Dal (S). Defying the party directions, Shivanna voted in favour of the Manmohan Singh government six months ago, when the vote on no-confidence was taken up, and subsequently joined the Congress, assured of a ticket for the Lok Sabha polls.