Gowda family suffers blow in LS polls

The Lok Sabha results were a double whammy for the Gowda dynasty in Karnataka where not only former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda lost the election from Tumkur constituency but his grandson and chief minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy too was routed badly.

The only face saver for the Gowda family was Deve Gowda'sanother grandson Prajwal Revanna, son of PWD minister H D Revanna, who won from Hassan seat.

At the ripe old age of 87, Gowda contested the election from Tumkur only to be defeated at the hands of BJP's G S Basavaraj by a thin margin of 13,339 votes.

Gowda had shifted from his traditional bastion of Hassan making way for his grandson, but it did not pay off for him.

Nikhil, a greenhorn in the electoral politics, lost from Mandya against independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh, a film actress and widow of popular Kannada film actor-turned-politician Ambareesh, who died last year.

While Gowda's defeat has almost signalled his retirement from the electoral politics, Nikhil Kumaraswamy's defeat would make the JD(S) leadership introspect.

The Opposition BJP often accuses JD(S) of being a familyenterprise as chief minister H D Kumaraswamy and PWD minister H D Revanna are the sons of Deve Gowda while Ramanagar MLA Anitha Kumaraswamy is the wife of the Karnataka chief minister.

Had Deve Gowda and his grandsons won the election, the number of the Gowda dynasty in politics would have swelled to six.