Vastu-compliant electioneering in Ramanagaram

Maralavadi is candidates preferred hobli to kickstart campaigning

The constituency is spread over four hoblis - Harohalli, Maralavadi, Kailancha and Kasaba. Vastu Shastra defines the corner where north and east directions meet as God’s corner, which is sacred. Maralavadi hobli enjoys this sacred position in the constituency.

Ministers Katta Subramanya Naidu and Vishweshwara Hegde Kageri launched the campaign in the hobli on August 3. They offered special pooja at Kanive Mahadeshwara temple at Tattekere village in the hobli. JD(S) workers began their campaign at Maralavadi on Tuesday. Congress candidate C M Lingappa has been campaigning in Maralavadi and its neighbouring Harohalli hoblis for the last three days. No candidate has moved out of these areas so far.

Asked why he chose Maralavadi to launch the campaign, JD(S) candidate K Raju said, “We have faith in a practice and, we follow it.” While he hesitated to admit that he followed Vastu shastra, one of his associates interrupted to say, “We follow Vastu. We believe if we start our campaign from God’s corner (deva moole) we will succeed.”

The two hoblis - Harohalli and Maralavadi, which constitute a total of 70,000 votes, were earlier parts of Kanakapura constituency. After the delimitation in 2008, they were included in Ramanagaram constituency. They are new areas for Congress candidate Lingappa, who represented Ramanagaram three terms in the past. He is concentrating more on these areas as he is new to the area.

In his campaign speeches on Thursday, he appealed to the voters to consider him as their man and support his candidature. He attempted to identify some of the villagers by their name to show that he knows the local public well.

Home turf

For BJP candidate Narayana Gowda, these two hoblis are his home turf. In 1999 and 2004 he contested from Kanakapura. Chinnaswamy, a BJP worker, said the party started campaign from Maralavadi as it enjoys significance because of its positioning. “Moreover, the BJP enjoys clout in the area. When Narayana Gowda contested twice in Kanakapura he secured more votes there. The party decided to launch the campaign where the party has base,” he said.

The JD(S) is expecting PGR Sindhia’s popularity in these hoblis to come in handy. He won from Kanakapura six times. Sindhia has announced that he will campaign for the JD(S) candidate.

Lunch politics

Who says there is no free lunch? Come to Ramanagaram. The BJP has set up an election office in a farm house near Harohalli, in Kanakapura taluk for the August 18 by-poll. On an average 400 people are being served meal daily since August 1.

When this reporter visited the farm on Thursday afternoon nearly 100 people were seen having lunch. A worker in the farm said hundreds of people were being offered meal three times a day. It would continue till August 18, the day of the polling.