With the felicity of switching TV channels on a remote control handset, Chamarajanagar district used to be ‘remotely’ governed over the years. This small district bordering Tamil Nadu, born barely ten years ago after being upgraded from a taluk headquarter, was considered too inhospitable for taking up residence.
The power centres used to operate mostly from Bangalore, Mysore or at best from Kollegal, and not from ‘Nagara’ or Chamarajanagar.
Only recently, 'Nagara' acquired a neat and palatial building--the District Administrative Office housing nearly 46 different offices, including the deputy commissioner's office, Zilla Panchayat, bank, post office, conference hall et al.
The brand new structure with beautifully laid out gardens and vast expanses of land still to be exploited, symbolises the winds of change sweeeping the City-town and rest of the distict.
District officials tell us that the land price boom in Mysore and the hope of the Mysore-Chamarajanagar broadgauge railway line becoming a reality soon, reducing travel time to  less than an hour, has begun to tempt 'Nagaraites' to stay put and even invest in property. The Karnataka Housing Board-built houses are much in demand.
A new engineering college is all set to open. Two by-pass roads and five kilometres of inter-link roads are being developed.

Kabini II
For the landed, big as well as small holders, Kabini Stage II is a dream they ardently hope will come true.  ''Give us Kabini II and Chamarajanagar will be the most properous district in the State," is their war cry. But, for the time being, it is only a vain hope as Kabini II is not feasible according to the Cauvery Water Dispute Tribunal's water allocation to Karnataka.
Then come the problems of power outages disrupting routine piped water supply, lack of toilets and so on. Cauvery water supply scheme, commissioned in 2000, is still in the takeoff stage with old distribution lines not capable of delivering, leakages and frequent breakdowns in pumping.

Retaliation
Still, people are willing to be partners of change and development.
Mention the 'Chamarajanagar jinx' to them and they retaliate in anger: “junk the jinx and not our homeland.”
Ask about Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s bold gesture of visiting Chamarajanagar later this month, despite many of his predecessors giving them the slip in the last 17 years, Mahadev of Santhemarahalli retorts: "Why not make a man from Chamarajanagar the CM, Being his hometown, he will have to visit us and let's see if the town is jinxed."
So, the people here want sustainable development and not quick fix measures and freebies from the government.

No more hard work
As Balappa of Agara village, who has nearly an acre of land but subsists on grazing cattle, sums up: "I have no water to cultivate. Even the landed gentry find it difficult to get labour. People are not willing to work hard any more. The pay and use telephones are easy money earners and rations have made life easy. It is the will to work that needs a push." 
The ruling JD(S) has cleverly picked the only two Opposition-ruled constituencies in the district - Santhemarahalli (represented by Cong MLA Dhruvanarayan) and Chamarajanagar (held by Independent MLA Vatal Nagaraj) for CM's three-day rendezvous.
If the Chamarajanagar jinx is to be broken, as the locals demand,  the government has to put development before politics.

COINCIDENCE vs SUPERSTITION

Will HDK reverse the ‘jinx’?
D Devraj Urs, who enjoyed the longest tenure as Chief Minister of Karnataka for two terms, lost power within six months after visiting Chamarajanagar in 1980.
Ramakrishna Hegde bowed out of office after a visit to Chamarajanagar, being embroiled in a phone tapping scandal in 1988.
Veerendra Patil, who made a triumphant return to power in 1989 on a Congress wave, unexpectedly suffered a stroke the next year and was asked to step down by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He had paid a visit to Chamarajanagar just a few months before that.
These three “coincidences” led to the superstitious belief that Chamarajanagar is a “jinxed town” for serving chief ministers and six CMs who followed Veerendra Patil - S Bangarappa, Veerappa Moily, Deve Gowda, J H Patel, S M Krishna and Dharam Singh studiously avoided it.
So much so, J H Patel, whose government granted Chamarajanagar the district status, performed the inauguration from MM Hills!
Those who pooh-pooh the jinx theory point out the “luck” Chamarajanagar brought to two politicians: R Gundu Rao and Dharam Singh, who never dreamt of being CMs did so after their visit to Chamarajanagar.
After a 17-year hiatus for an incumbent CM, H D Kumaraswamy will attempt to explode the myth. “But, he has nothing to lose as he has only 4 months left as CM, before he is scheduled to hand over power to the BJP. Who knows, in his case, a visit to Chamarajanagar may work in the reverse
direction,” says a political observer, tongue firmly in cheek.