Who will be the 'Nayaka' among them?

By-polls to Ward 41: For BJP, Narayanappa still remains vote puller; Cong and JD(S) make battle interesting

The ward reserved for ST candidates sees candidates belonging to Nayaka community fielded by the three major parties, obviously eyeing on the community votes that forms the large chunk of total 9,022 votes.

Though Narayanappa was disqualified as BJP councillor  of the same ward following a court verdict, he still remains the ‘vote puller’ for the party, if his popularity in the ward is an indication. It would be difficult to find a banner of BJP without Narayanappa’s name printed on it.

Poll fever

The remaining two political parties- Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) are not left behind in the race. Most importantly, it’s only the parties that are feeling poll fever, while the residents of the ward are non-chalant busy in their jobs to eke out a living.

When Deccan Herald did a recce on Sunday, Basaveshwara Temple in the heart of Veerangere was a beehive of activities. Congress party had convened a meeting of veerashaivas at the temple, attended by the elders of the community.

MLA Tanveer Sait appealed to them to support party’s candidate for the love of his father late Azeez Sait who had also represented N R Constituency in the assembly, that includes the same ward.

Congress MLA from Gundlupet H S Mahadevaprasad went door-to-door along with Sait and candidate Raveendra Kumar.  In JD(S) camp, Mayor Sandesh Swamy has made the ward his second home, canvassing for the party’s nominee S R Swamy.

Also, Mayor’s brother and MLC Sandesh Nagaraj, another MLC S Chikkamadu and Corporators have been actively campaigning. Cop turned politician and MLC Abdul Azeem and former deputy chairman of Legislative Council David Simone have already visited the ward.

Riding high

BJP that is riding high on the support Narayanappa enjoys among the locals, seems to have found a bonus in their candidate R Srinivas being the local face. He resides on pulikeshi road, in Veerangere. His rivals Raveendra Kumar lives at Yaraganahalli, Swamy has moved to N R Mohalla. Moreover, Srinivas is the blue-eyed boy of Narayanappa who had entrusted the responsibility of the ward to Srinivas, when he (Narayanappa) was the Corporator. He’s not new to them.

If gone by poll tactics, parties are laying more emphasis on Veerangere, Mohammed Sait and Sattar Sait Blocks. In the previous polls Narayanappa had garnered most of the votes in Veerangere.

In the afore said blocks, Congress had to suffer badly as the votes were split between the two candidates ensuring Narayanappa’s victory.

Now, the blocks stand united favouring Congress only, claim the workers of that party.  While BJP is confident of retaining the seat as the blocks continue to support Narayanappa, which will boost BJP,  JD(S) is hopeful of  springing a surprise.